JRPGs

What went so horribly wrong?Why is it so hard to find good ones?

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Are you using Grandia as an example of a bad or good jrpg?

I need to know if you're retarded or not, respectively.

1: the big studios went '10 million sellers or don't bother'.

2: it became to expensive to make an epic scale JRPG, better to hedge your bets on something cheap to produce like Atelier or Nep Nep that only sells 200k but costs next to nothing to make than to risk big bucks on 500-1m sales and have the company die if it flops.

3: the audience has been funneled down too niche of a path, focusing on loyal supporters who they know will buy games rather than risking going after a wider audience.

Because you are using the JRPG term like some cancerous casual

there are still plenty of great modern "Japanese Role Playing Games" but in these days don't expect to see high budget/quality "turn and party based, pixelated and anime artstyled rpgs" even if somehow that's what most people think jrpg means

What's 4th row last column?

2d-sprites were okay but those horrible animelike copypaste models with different hairstyles and eyecolours are a nogo for me atleast.

Fucking reply when I'm askin something.

Casualization to appeal to a broader demographic. Games in general have become more like interactive movies.

A lot of the bright minds of the 90s have left, and have been replaced by people who are clueless on game design.

Games have become more expensive to make, so game devs are hesitant to take risks.

And to be honest I'm getting tired of all the weeb waifu games, and I think others are too. I want more innocent, lighthearted games that maybe have a couple scenes of fanservice.

MMOs and action games got popular, so they started mixing them with RPGs, to disastrous results.

>. Games in general have become more like interactive movies.
That's funny because I see more interesting gameplay mechanics in JRPGs than ever before.

Older games had very simple mechanics most of the time. The story was what people played them for.

This new SAO game looks like it might be good. I don't own a PS4, but the game looks like it would be my kind of thing. Kinda 'Tales of Dragon's Dogma' like.

too much blend with wrpg I think, some folk don't know the difference anymore.

I hope you're not implying grandia was bad

have a leen.

I really like the 2D facial expressions. Justin and Feena each must have like 30-40 different expressions.

>DQ is literally a bottom tier JRPG franchise
>Its one of the few franchises still alive.
The japs shit taste really has no bounds.

7th gen and upwards' development costs killed JRPGs.

There hasn't been a single gen 7 RPG that exceeded FF7's budget.

There hasn't been a single one that managed to reach FF7's cost:profit ratio either.
Well, except if you consider mobage games as RPGs.

>t. final faggot

I'm glad your shit series is dying.

deleted and reposted because I didn't realize it has some spoilers in it

>What went so horribly wrong?
>Why is it so hard to find good ones?
Standardization. The whole genre suddenly turned into big multimillion dollar business and came up with a set of what is a "proper" JRPG, and as such you have a bunch of games which play identically and have no originality between any of them. It's little wonder the genre went to shit.

Want to know what the worst part of JRPGs, and RPGs in general, is? The shitty menus and combat prompts. What to know what the best part is? Basically everything else. The menus and combat were a placeholder to get you around the game and between the interesting parts. JRPGs were always about the story, or the exploration, or the characters, or the SOMETHING else. Nobody say down and played Dragon Quest because they enjoyed the combat system.

Not that turn-based battles were bad, just that they were dull by themselves. Go play Grandia (a really good turn-based system) then play Grandia Xtreme, and you'll quickly find out the problem there. It isn't that the combat is bad, but that it's boring and it gets highlighted as such once you remove all the really good parts of a game like Grandia. (the characters, the story, the interaction, etc.)

JRPGs are not something like Tetris or Devil May Cry, where just the gameplay itself can suffice even when ignoring everything else. Rather, it was the mode of giving a story or an experience. While Visual Novels figured this out a long time ago and make big attempts at streamlining everything so that the player can experience what parts they want whenever they'd like, JRPGs are still stuck in the mindset that it's the grinding and menus that everyone loves, and so just focus on more grinding and more menus rather than the good parts of the games.

Grandia xtreme's battles were shit though. The bosses were bland and reused ideas from the first two, and the magic system revamp fucking sucked compared to 2.

Sounds like you've never heard of Disgaea or EO

Some people legit love menus and grinding, or maybe not grinding but at least dungeon crawling. Though I agree that the essential element in an RPG is in something else, immersion, setting, story, world-building, lore.

not him but im pretty sure its exist archive
spiritual successor to valkyrie profile, but in reality just a shittier version in every way

>suikoden is dead
>breath of fire is dead
>valkyrie profile is dead
>mana is dead
>paper mario may as well be dead
>tactics ogre is dead

the world was never meant to be like this

i played baten kaitos 1/2, tales of destiny 1/2(ps2), and mana khemia 1/2 solely for their combat, and skipped every single cutscene possible

The VAST majority of JRPG stories and characters have never been anything but generic romps through colorful fantasy land full of characters that are little more than shallow one-dimensional caricatures

Of course this isn't to say WRPGs aren't shit for completely different reasons, just that people who grow attached to JRPG characters have subhuman taste

>skipped every single cutscene possible
>shallow one-dimensional caricatures
Gee I wonder why

Grandia was good up until the second disc started where it became another save the world jrpg. Was much better when the focus of the plot was adventuring.

Grandia is a good JRPG tbqh.

It's one of the best adventuring games ever anyway, if not the very best one.

That was the era of RPGs, like the one before that was the era of platformers.
These days is shooters, or some sort of action hybrid full of cutscenes with hollywood actors.
Shit just changed, unfortunately. And the few jrpgs that exist are for waifu lovers that do cute things because that's what sells.

>shining force as Camelot as a delevoper is dead
>phantasy star is dead in the west
>almost every old classic of square/enix is dead except for FF
>DQ is semi-dead in the west
>Overworks(skies of arcadia) is dead
>Fire Emblem is waifu tier debate with 3 versions like Pokemon does

>tfw Feena was my first waifu without even knowing what a waifu is

Good post.

An example of a good jrpg.

Camelot is still alive, though. They just need to stop making garbage and reboot Shining Force already. Or make a whole new IP altogether, since Golden Sun is kinda dead.

The sad thing is that despite all of this being true some moron will go "bububut we are getting persona 5,tales of berseria and FFXV"

>that feel when you first board the steamer ship
No game has given me that feeling since

True second disc was worse especially during the end of it.Killing the same bosses and traversing the same maps as if they were trying so hard to increase its length.Most of it could be summed in 20m let alone 20 hours.

JPRG's started to become shit after the PS1 era.

Please delete this post,user ;_;

>Comparing P5 to those 2 stale as fuck IPs
Come on, user, you're better than that.

WoFF was actually pretty good

Post your favorite JRPGs from PS1
>Grandia
>BoF IV
>Suikoden-2

Feena was like the mom I've never had...

This game is so lewd at times damn.

>mfw Justin gropes her butt in the dark and she blushes because he probably hit her vag

Chrono Cross, Grandia, Legend of Dragoon, BoF IV and Digimon World 3.

>experience and explore the world for the first time, become a man
>roll around with your crew in a broken down Audi cabriolet

Where did it go so wrong?

They dropped the ball really damn hard by making the main characters turn into KH rejects. It completely fucks up the visual style of the game.

Waifufagging became a main selling point, instead of being done outside of the development process by the fans themselves

>Persona is the holy grail of jprg's

Get kicked in your feelings!

youtube.com/watch?v=X6-Ok2nsROA

Isn't persona 5 literaly persona 4-2 up to having the same exact plot twist?

post bros

What's wrong with JRPGs nowadays? Sure they're a lot more story-focused than the original Dragon Quest and very first Final Fantasy nowadays, but gameplay-wise, they've become more fun and interesting than ever. Random encounters are no longer much of a thing, thank God for that, and the gameplay's become more interesting than just the standard turn-based gameplay that was the norm before. Even when they're turn-based, they're still more interesting than they used to be, offering a wider degree of mechanics than just "menu select > select attack/skill/item > repeat".

...

No main P5 plot twist deals with Igor.

...

what's so good about it

>but gameplay-wise, they've become more fun and interesting than ever
Yeah sure buddy, that's why they receive mediocre at best ratings...

Have you actually read jrpg reviews these days?
>these characters are too young
>not enough like dark souls
>why are the women attractive
>this is too japanese for me

>suikoden will never have another game
>valkyrie profile will never have another game

please just fucking kill me...

Modern jprg's in a nutshell
>Shitty forgetable unlikeable boring characters
>Shitty forgetable boring story
>Outdated graphics on modern gaming systems
>Boring soundtrack nothing compared to what some of the the PS1 jprg's have offer
>Shitty stupid clunky controls and gameplay

story-focused isn't necessarily a good thing when the story is bad and you sacrifice character development for it.

See: Every JRPG since Square merged with Enix. The merger and drama surrounding Final Fantasy XII essentially killed any chance of inspiration and artistic integrity ever driving the development of JRPGs again.

Stories don't have to be some grand, intertwining saga that lasts so (Final Fantasy XIII) long that fatigue sets in, but they also shouldn't be riddled with dialogue so braindead that it insults the player no matter what age (Bravely Default).

It's worth noting that the old fashioned Menu > Attack > Select Enemy combat system was at it's core unoffensive. It didn't hurt to experience it, and eventually you were rewarded with great battle themes, cool looking bosses and some fantastic skill animations. It was cool to look at, and every so often you'd have an encounter that actually made you think.

JRPGs today have such incredibly offensive combat systems that aren't new or experimental, just systems taken from successful games, stripped down a repurposed for reasons(?). They hurt to play, they're annoying to experience, and their failure makes the glaring issues like AWFUL WRITING and NO CHARACTERS OR PLOT that much worse.

tl;dr Square Enix killed the genre; nobody played Lost Odyssey

It all boils down to what JRPG means to an individual like .Post some that you think are good.

>Pokemon Sun/Moon is shit
>Final Fantasy is a massive disappointment
If Persona 5 and Kingdom Hearts 3 is shit I will kill myself

Because you posted the only good JRPG ever made.

>gaming journalists ratings meaning shit
ahahahahaha,

sun and moon is good and FFXV isn't even out, are you the kind of faggot that believes everything Sup Forums says?

>Sup Forums biased weeb fanboy opinions meaning shit
Hahahahahaha!

The way you use JRPG makes the term have no functional meaning.

Saving your ass since Suikoden 1.

>See: Every JRPG since Square merged with Enix. The merger and drama surrounding Final Fantasy XII essentially killed any chance of inspiration and artistic integrity ever driving the development of JRPGs again.

I don't think so, I think it has more to do with budgets and required sales for profit both going up immensely. There's a reason why if your average JRPG makes ~150k sales it's considered a success in Japan.

You guys need to take off the goggles because JRPG's have never been good. Just because you grew up with them doesn't mean they were ever playable or great.

I actually just started playing Grandia for the first time. I really like 2 as a kid.
Holy shit it's great. I'm almost to the Dom ruins.

>Justin without his hat
Unf

It just means JRPGs are not made for you anymore, user. Persona 5 and FF15 are the new audience's hot shit.

Post yfw best friend is all better and it's time go back on an adventure.

Over the past year and a half I started getting deeper into jrpgs, before I'd only played pokemon as a kid, but I've been going through a lot of old 5th gen stuff, and it really pulled me in.

The really campy aspect of older games is my favorite part of playing them for me outside of actual game elements.

what's the second from the left on the bottom row?

>dat feel when soundtrack screams ADVENTURE
youtube.com/watch?v=wd9NP0nWOTA

Not to say a contingent of JRPGs wasn't pretentious since pretty much forever, but holy fuck what happened to just being games about adventure and not melodrama?

>second from the left on the bottom row?

Looks like Aegis Rim: 13 sentinel; Vanillaware's latest game

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Which isn't even out yet or have any actual gameplay shown

They want to be "taken seriously", whatever the fuck that means in video games context.

Back then, every single game was about "the adventure". So when a game with an actual story to tell came along, it became something unique and novel. This game became extremely popular, so every game went on to try to emulate it. People started wanting more, so they started making the stories more "grand" and "emotional". It all boils down to escalation.

Also, you can't but hundreds upon hundreds of man hours into the graphics and gameplay and have the story something small and simple that they put together on a weekend at the office.

Thanks, looks like all there was is a trailer, but it's interesting to see a mecha jrpg

I WANNA FUCK FEENA!1!

you nigga ready to cry? because I sure am.

youtube.com/watch?v=J4fUdY1PGhY

>yfw Feena joins Mullen to fight Gaia and ultimately sacrifice herself
>yfw Justin gives up and your party members-friends leave you
>yfw they all come back moments before Justin kills himself
>yfw power of friendship yet again prevails

youtube.com/watch?v=X6-Ok2nsROA

I think the best part is it's the kinda of game where it works and doesn't just come off as a cliche. Game reinforces friendship throughout its entire duration so it makes perfect sense.

I never said such a thing.

>It just means JRPGs are not made for you anymore, user.
this is the horrible truth I don't want to admit to myself. jrpgs are no longer made for me.

>Implying Grandia is a bad JRPG

Get a load of this fucking pleb

>2:18
>that violin segment.
Fuck

>JRPG thread
>Ctrl+F "Lunar"
>0 results
I-i liked it.

I prefer the original, but it's nice to see Iwadare get some attention beyond Capcom putting out another Gyakuten Saiban arrangement album. His "Ensemble" albums he's been doing with Reiko Tsuchiya are great as standalone things.

ITT:LITERALLY NOTHING WRONG

They totally butchered the remake and made it super generic. I've gotta play the original one of these days.

It should have been Justin, Sue, Feena, and a fourth temporary party member depending on the plot arc for the entire game.

Mind you, there are still smaller, simpler games with simple stories to this day. Take Pokemon for instance. Sure the story isn't completely bare-bones the way it used to be, but it still has very little melodrama and is more about the adventure than some pointless romance. Dragon Quest, for the most part, still remains comparatively simple as well. The old style of RPG has simply become more common on hand-helds than they are on consoles.

Eh, Lunar 1 pretty much became a running joke with the ports and remake. PS1 edition was great and they should've left it there.