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Grew up loving JRPGs. Getting old hating them.

Life

Member
We're about to hit 2022 and it baffles me we are still getting "new" (turn-based) JRPGs with exactly the same battle system + random encounter mechanics from 35 years ago or so. If it wasn't for modern graphics, you'd be hard-pressed to spot the difference between dungeon gameplay from back then, to one now.

I'm not that fed up about the predictable characters, towns, predictable "save the world" stories (although for once it would be nice to have a more personal story where you save your friend/family/town only). I'm just pissed an AI could probably be programmed to produce the gameplay aspects of a full RPG in (probably) mere minutes.

Create a plain dungeon> scatter a bunch of easy enemies, repeatedly fight the same enemies, scatter some treasure in different corners to attract MORE random encounters and increase your playtime. And there you have it. The only meaningful fight will be the boss - but even that will most likely be a breeze cos you were forced to grind/level up with the other encounters.

Instead of all these easy/repetitive fights that take so much time and are of no challenge, why not make a dungeon that has only 5 or 6 quality battles? Each one lasting about 5-8 minutes each, with unique enemies that make you reassess your team/equipment/tactics. Enemies that have SOME degree intelligence, reacting to what equipment you're wearing, or that are faster/stronger in certain terrain/weather etc etc. Battles that have been given thought and attention to by the devs. None of these ideas are mindblowing, but how lazy is it to only develop decent boss fights (which make up around 5-10% of game time), and feed the player fucking fodder for the rest of the 90%?
 

cireza

Banned
Looks like you are playing baby's first JRPGs. There are more interesting games in the genre than what you describe.

Valkyria Chronicles 4
Brigandine
Lost Odyssey
Lightning Returns
Final Fantasy XV

These were all pretty great J-RPGs if you ask me.
 
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Guilty_AI

Member
well yeah, if you just take a random genre like jrpg and play a whole ton of them, odds are there'll be more bad and tropy things than good ones. Just like you can't just take a bunch of movies on netflix and expect half of them to be good.
 

Little Mac

Gold Member
In all honesty its the amount of talking/dialog that ruins it for me. I don't have the time to sit through 2-3 hours of exposition before getting to test out the battle system. I'm all about the slime hunting grind ... the min/maxing of stats ... the kill 1000 of this specific creature for this secret badass weapon drop that practically breaks the game. 90% of JRPG stories are convoluted messes and being forced to sit through the narrative train wreck is a turnoff.
 
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The Cockatrice

Gold Member
Im in the opposite side. Never cared or liked games like ff or trials or w/e else when I was a kid. Nowadays tho, I enjoy some but not all jrpgs. but I do play them. For example Yakuza Like a Dragon, loved it. Persona 5 and R? Fucking awesome. Dragon Quest 11 and Ni No Kuni 2? Fucking garbage. Excited to try Tales of Arise.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
I'm with The Cockatrice The Cockatrice , never cared about them as a kid but now I really enjoy them.

The SMT series really opened my eyes, as I used to think turn based combat was boring shit before playing any of those.
 
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Pejo

Member
We're about to hit 2022 and it baffles me we are still getting "new" fighting games with exactly the same battle system + combo mechanics from 35 years ago or so. If it wasn't for modern graphics, you'd be hard-pressed to spot the difference between fighting game gameplay from back then, to one now.

I'm not that fed up about the predictable characters, stages, predictable "save the world" stories (although for once it would be nice to have a more personal story where you save your friend/family/town only). I'm just pissed an AI could probably be programmed to produce the gameplay aspects of a full fighting game in (probably) mere minutes.

Create a dojo stage > scatter a bunch of button inputs, repeatedly fight the same enemies, add leaderboards and ranking to increase your playtime. And there you have it. The only meaningful fight will be the boss - but even that will most likely be a breeze cos you were forced to practice with the other encounters.

Instead of all these easy/repetitive fights that take so much time and are of no challenge, why not make a tournament that has only 5 or 6 quality characters? Each one having about 5-8 moves each, with unique hit effects that make you reassess your team/tactics. Enemies that have SOME degree intelligence, reacting to what punch you're throwing, or that are faster/stronger in certain terrain/weather etc etc. Battles that have been given thought and attention to by the devs. None of these ideas are mindblowing, but how lazy is it to only develop decent boss fights (which make up around 5-10% of game time), and feed the player fucking fodder for the rest of the 90%?

You're getting old and these games don't appeal to you anymore. That's cool, move along and play something you like. These criticisms can be made for almost all genres that existed 35 years ago. Some of us actually like the familiar gameplay, and I personally enjoy grinding levels, it's a destressor thing for me to just mow down enemies and watch bars fill up.
 

kurisu_1974

is on perm warning for being a low level troll
Weird post. Play stuff like Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Bravely Default II, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Yakuza: Like a Dragon instead of the games that we don't know what they are that you have been playing.
 
Octopath Traveler felt like the beginning of the future of retro JRPGs remaining relevant. Really great battle system, interesting characters, game is broken up into easily digestive episodes, amazing graphics and art style. I highly recommend it.

Bravely Default II is a little less impressive, but still a great game.

FFXVI will be fun I'm sure.
 

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
Octopath Traveler felt like the beginning of the future of retro JRPGs remaining relevant. Really great battle system, interesting characters, game is broken up into easily digestive episodes, amazing graphics and art style. I highly recommend it.

Bravely Default II is a little less impressive, but still a great game.

FFXVI will be fun I'm sure.
Octopath is great. Can't wait for that DQIII HD remake.
 

Artistic

Member
RPGs used to be my favorite genre before I got introduced to XBL/FPS.

Don't think I have the attention span for one anymore. FFX still remains one of my all time favorite games though.
 

*Nightwing

Member
JRPG used to mean a turn based rpg with plenty of anime style and Japanese cultural influence.

ARPG meant all action rpgs regardless of country of origin or content.

it’s fine the tastes of OP has grown from JRPG to ARPG, but why ask for JRPG to change what they are? Why not just use the different name
instead of trying and redefine the parameters of a specific video game genre?
 
We're about to hit 2022 and it baffles me we are still getting "new" fighting games with exactly the same battle system + combo mechanics from 35 years ago or so. If it wasn't for modern graphics, you'd be hard-pressed to spot the difference between fighting game gameplay from back then, to one now.

I'm not that fed up about the predictable characters, stages, predictable "save the world" stories (although for once it would be nice to have a more personal story where you save your friend/family/town only). I'm just pissed an AI could probably be programmed to produce the gameplay aspects of a full fighting game in (probably) mere minutes.

Create a dojo stage > scatter a bunch of button inputs, repeatedly fight the same enemies, add leaderboards and ranking to increase your playtime. And there you have it. The only meaningful fight will be the boss - but even that will most likely be a breeze cos you were forced to practice with the other encounters.

Instead of all these easy/repetitive fights that take so much time and are of no challenge, why not make a tournament that has only 5 or 6 quality characters? Each one having about 5-8 moves each, with unique hit effects that make you reassess your team/tactics. Enemies that have SOME degree intelligence, reacting to what punch you're throwing, or that are faster/stronger in certain terrain/weather etc etc. Battles that have been given thought and attention to by the devs. None of these ideas are mindblowing, but how lazy is it to only develop decent boss fights (which make up around 5-10% of game time), and feed the player fucking fodder for the rest of the 90%?

You're getting old and these games don't appeal to you anymore. That's cool, move along and play something you like. These criticisms can be made for almost all genres that existed 35 years ago. Some of us actually like the familiar gameplay, and I personally enjoy grinding levels, it's a destressor thing for me to just mow down enemies and watch bars fill up.
Life finds a way to cook up a new copypasta.
 

Life

Member
please play Tales of Arise, its honestly amazing. I get it falls under your complaints, but a good story and characters with flashy and fun combat is enjoyable to me.
I wish I would get excited/surprised like I did before. But as I grew older, my interest for story-telling/characters waned. It became much more about the challenge/battles/managing your party. That's when I started to really dislike turn-based JRPGs because they don't offer much of a challenge in that regard.
 

Griffon

Member
I used to say I love JRPGs.
But the truth is I only love Square JRPGs, and even then, not even all of those.

To me it's a genre that has awesome high highs (FF7, FF9, Seiken 3, Chrono Trigger, and a few others), but everything else ranges from boring to just plain bad.
Oftentimes the very high encounter rates and gameplay repetitiveness kills it, if not for some boring or bad stories. It's a very hard genre to make a good game in. Perhaps the hardest.

So yeah, your situation sounds pretty normal to me OP. I think it's not you, it's just that the vast majority of JRPGs are meh. And we were just lucky to have played the very best before.
 
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Ironically, Dragon Quest is probably the series that is the most guilty of this by far. It runs on nostalgia. The entire point behind it is that it doesn't change.

interestingly, I have never played a DQ game until the PS4 version and I loved it

probably because I just don’t play many JRPGs these days, it felt pretty refreshing
 
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Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
please play Tales of Arise, its honestly amazing. I get it falls under your complaints, but a good story and characters with flashy and fun combat is enjoyable to me.
Yeah. I got Arise and while it's general design seems dated, it's a pretty chill game to play. It's also not a bad game to look at. The music is pretty good and the combat is getting nuts and looks flashy to where I want to be good enough to keep combos rolling.
 
I wish I would get excited/surprised like I did before. But as I grew older, my interest for story-telling/characters waned. It became much more about the challenge/battles/managing your party. That's when I started to really dislike turn-based JRPGs because they don't offer much of a challenge in that regard.
Interesting it's the opposite for me. Never got a dopamine hit from games and wasting time managing spreadsheets feels too much like work. It's why I don't play mobile phone games.
 
Opposite for me, probably helps I'm a late bloomer to the genre tho. Finished Loddos-tou Senki (Record of Lodoss War) a while ago and probably gonna start playing Cyber Knight II mainly. Also playing Moon: RPG Remix if that counts (it's more an adventure game tbh).

Might give Tales of Arise a chance in the near future, and if that GeForce leak is true and SMT V is coming to PC, I'm definitely gonna cop it.
 
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Life

Member
You're getting old and these games don't appeal to you anymore. That's cool, move along and play something you like. These criticisms can be made for almost all genres that existed 35 years ago. Some of us actually like the familiar gameplay, and I personally enjoy grinding levels, it's a destressor thing for me to just mow down enemies and watch bars fill up.

It's not really as simple as that. I'm also angry because I know these games can be better - MUCH better. They just don't get the time and attention to be better - mainly because of the reasons you mentioned. People enjoy familiarity and the mediocrity that comes with it - and they have done so for too long.
 

Fbh

Member
Why focus specifically on whatever turn based JRPG with random encounters you are talking about instead of the majority of big JRPG's that don't have that stuff?

This year we got:
Tales of Arise: Real time combat, no random encounters
Ff7 Remake Intergrade: Real time combat, no random encounters.
Nier Replicant: Real time combat, no random encounters
YSIX: Real time combat, no random encounters
SMTV: Does have turn based combat, but it's a cool system that offers quite a bit of challenge, also no random encounters.

I do agree that some JRPG's lean a bit too heavily on unnecessary bloat and padding, and I'd be happy to see more JRPG's in the 20-30 hours range (for the main story) instead of bloated 60 hours runtimes. But it's not like the JRPG's releasing today or still exactly the same as 20 years ago.
 
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Yeah, I'm pretty much done with traditional JRPGs for similar reasons. I'm not sure I'll even go back to ones I used to love like FF6 and FF7 because random encounters just drive me up the wall at this point. But there's no lack of other games out there so no big deal.
 

Pejo

Member
It's not really as simple as that. I'm also angry because I know these games can be better - MUCH better. They just don't get the time and attention to be better - mainly because of the reasons you mentioned. People enjoy familiarity and the mediocrity that comes with it - and they have done so for too long.
That's just you essentially saying that your tastes are correct and refined and mine is outdated and wrong. Do you think FF7R was a better JRPG than FF7 proper? I sure as hell don't.
 

Mister Wolf

Member
I love them more than ever. My favorite is Falcom's Trails franchise. They took the crown from Monolith Soft's Xeno franchise. I would spend over $100 if I could get an English version of Trails Of Reverie in 2022 instead of 2023
 

Pantz

Gold Member
Sounds like you're grinding too much.

You can also give yourself a challenge if you feel that you're too smart for the game.

With most turn-based JPRGs I give myself a challenge of only keeping one of each piece of equipment. It's a small challenge but makes things a little more interesting deciding who gets what equipment. If I need more of a challenge I might do some randomizing like random distribution of skill tree points or even randomizing my equipment before boss fights to make things interesting.

I don't really know about your idea of how turn-based can be sooo much better. If you're looking for 6-8 minute encounters, that's more like what you would find in a MMORPG like FF14.

Also, what new turn-based JPRGs have been the cause of your grief? There's really not that many that come out anymore. Maybe something like SMTV will be more interesting than whatever you've been playing.
 
I'm kind of the opposite. I used to love JRPGs because of the story and sense of adventure and just tolerated turn-based combat for those things.

Now, I usually can't get invested in JRPG stories, as they're almost always ridiculous and very similar, but I deal with that for turn-based combat, character progression and dungeon crawling.
 

Skelterz

Member
We're about to hit 2022 and it baffles me we are still getting "new" (turn-based) JRPGs with exactly the same battle system + random encounter mechanics from 35 years ago or so. If it wasn't for modern graphics, you'd be hard-pressed to spot the difference between dungeon gameplay from back then, to one now.

I'm not that fed up about the predictable characters, towns, predictable "save the world" stories (although for once it would be nice to have a more personal story where you save your friend/family/town only). I'm just pissed an AI could probably be programmed to produce the gameplay aspects of a full RPG in (probably) mere minutes.

Create a plain dungeon> scatter a bunch of easy enemies, repeatedly fight the same enemies, scatter some treasure in different corners to attract MORE random encounters and increase your playtime. And there you have it. The only meaningful fight will be the boss - but even that will most likely be a breeze cos you were forced to grind/level up with the other encounters.

Instead of all these easy/repetitive fights that take so much time and are of no challenge, why not make a dungeon that has only 5 or 6 quality battles? Each one lasting about 5-8 minutes each, with unique enemies that make you reassess your team/equipment/tactics. Enemies that have SOME degree intelligence, reacting to what equipment you're wearing, or that are faster/stronger in certain terrain/weather etc etc. Battles that have been given thought and attention to by the devs. None of these ideas are mindblowing, but how lazy is it to only develop decent boss fights (which make up around 5-10% of game time), and feed the player fucking fodder for the rest of the 90%?

Play Dragon Quest XI in draconian mode mate you’ll be making a new thread about how that mode rekindled your love of the genre probably.
😂
 

Life

Member
Play Dragon Quest XI in draconian mode mate you’ll be making a new thread about how that mode rekindled your love of the genre probably.
😂
"Shypox/Super Shypox - The Hero and other party members will sometimes do things out of the player's control, such as: recalling an embarrassing memory that makes them lose their turn or not being able to talk to NPCs."

Lol I think I'll pass man. Just looking for AI enemies that have some sense - not gimped stats. That's the lazy way of adding difficulty.
 

Skelterz

Member
"Shypox/Super Shypox - The Hero and other party members will sometimes do things out of the player's control, such as: recalling an embarrassing memory that makes them lose their turn or not being able to talk to NPCs."

Lol I think I'll pass man. Just looking for AI enemies that have some sense - not gimped stats. That's the lazy way of adding difficulty.

I didn’t play with that setting on tbh the good thing about the way they handled draconian mode is you have a freedom of choice as to what difficulty settings you wish to apply…it seems like you latched on to the most absurd setting from all those in the list to refute my first comment, Maybe you should stop playing JRPG’s bud your clearly over them.

I’ll leave the list of options here for you incase you come to your senses, FYI options 4,8,9 👍.


No Shopping​
Cannot buy items from any shop​
No Armour​
Cannot equip armour on characters​
Reduced Experience from Easy Fights​
Weak enough enemies will grant 0 XP​
All Enemies Are Super Strong​
Enemies will be stronger than normal​
Shypox​
Protagonist will sometimes randomly lose a turn in battle​
Super Shypox​
Like Shypox, but for the entire party​
Townsfolk Talk Tripe​
NPCs will sometimes say random things​
Party Wiped Out is Protagonist Perishes​
If the Protagonist dies, then you receive a game over​
No Fleeing from Battle​
You cannot flee from battle​
 
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AmuroChan

Member
JRPG is still my favorite genre, though my tastes are much more particular these days. FF and DQ were the top dogs when I was growing up, but now I prefer Persona and Trails over them. The world-building and refined turn-based combat just appeal to me more.
 
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Great Hair

Banned
There are more interesting games in the genre
Final Fantasy XV
drunk the simpsons GIF
drunk dog GIF
 
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