Rpgs Are Boring

[FieryReign]

This line is probably considered blasphemous to most folks on this forum. Aside from a select few titles(Chrono Cross, Skies of Arcadia, Dragon Quest 8), I find them derivative, redundant, and boring. The Mario + Luigi games and Paper Mario were fun, but I would actually consider them more action-rpgish, with fun and unique battle systems.

What's weird with me, is that I simply love action rpg games such as Zelda, Alundra, and Landstalker. Games with actual gameplay and puzzles, instead of selecting commands from a menu and trudging through a maze-like cave. Aside from Zelda, this genre has disappeared. Where have they gone? And I also like platformer games with rpg elements like the Castlevania/Metroidvania style games. Call me weird...

Most people will say it's all about the story. But I'll pick up a book if I want to read. I've tried several Final Fantasy games and I just don't get why this series is so popular. The only one I ever had fun with was Mystic Quest and that's considered a bastard child of the series.

And what is with the main protaganists looking like females? It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between heroes and heroines. Is this some kind of trend? I might be un-PC, but playing as a character who looks like a drag queen doesn't interest me. What happened?

Help me to understand the boringness of this genre. I remember when they were rarely released stateside. Until the highly overrated Final Fantasy 7 was released. I've tried TONS of them and usually get bored by the second dungeon. I think it's just considered a "cool" thing by gamers to say they like and collect rpgs, yet deep down inside they are bored to tears. Who has time to play all of these things anyway? Go ahead and hate, I don't care. Rpgs are boring.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I've tried again and again to get into RPG's also, and I just can't get into em like other games. I'm just an action-platformer guy nowadays. I can get into Zelda for sure and other gamesl ike that, and I did put some time into FF13, but beyond that RPG's bore me. I have FF7 and 8 also, been trying to get into them but it just doesn't happen. I can't see myself ever putting 70 hours into a game like that.

[Daria]

Maybe you just don't like Final Fantasy games.

It's ok, neither do I.

[Tanooki]

I don't think it's blasphemous, but I will say this much, I can't finish them anymore, even the good ones, or perceived good ones. My last two attempts were spread out between Bravely Default and Tales of the Abyss a year earlier. Both I knocked off like 3/4 and 4/5 or so of them respectively but the crap way they switched gears in progression on the game it bored me to tears and I moved on. BD went into lame boss fights needing a very specific skill set or you get burned which is garbage (basically a nice way to sell guides) and Tales goes into this boss run hopping between spots on the map just doing that repeatedly, sometimes fighting the same guy over and over a bit later again which is just garbage game time expending tripe because the makers gave up developing the game I think to add clock time.

Find me a nice 20-30 hour game tops that keeps running smoothly and doesn't extend the clock with re-run battles or gimping fights to sell strategy guides so you don't get whacked and I'd be into it, at least on a handheld, too hard to get a TV RPG with a nearly 3 year old around.

[dra600n]

RPGs aren't for everyone, not a big deal. I hate FPS games and they all feel the same to me, so I understand how you feel about RPGs (which are my fav kind of games).

[Satoshi_Matrix]

This line is probably considered blasphemous to most folks on this forum. Aside from a select few titles(Chrono Cross, Skies of Arcadia, Dragon Quest 8), I find them derivative, redundant, and boring. The Mario + Luigi games and Paper Mario were fun, but I would actually consider them more action-rpgish, with fun and unique battle systems.

To each their own. There's no law that says you have to like RPGs in general or even RPGs that everyone else likes, like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 6.

What's weird with me, is that I simply love action rpg games such as Zelda, Alundra, and Landstalker. Games with actual gameplay and puzzles, instead of selecting commands from a menu and trudging through a maze-like cave. Aside from Zelda, this genre has disappeared. Where have they gone? And I also like platformer games with rpg elements like the Castlevania/Metroidvania style games. Call me weird...

So you like action RPGs over turn based PRGs. Some people like motorcycles over cars, flying over driving, or walking more than riding a bike. That's just you. Nothing wrong with that. Don't feel like there is.

Most people will say it's all about the story. But I'll pick up a book if I want to read. I've tried several Final Fantasy games and I just don't get why this series is so popular. The only one I ever had fun with was Mystic Quest and that's considered a bastard child of the series.

The story of a good RPG is a vital element, but it isn't the most important one. I would say far more important are the characters themselves. You have to like the people you are playing as. You have to buy into their personalities and how they interact with each other. At their best, RPGs are capable of the greatest characters in gaming as they can be fully fleshed out and aspects of their personalities explored in situations that just would never occur in other genres. The characters are the key reason I play any RPG. Generally speaking, if I don't give a crap about who I'm playing as, then I don't give a crap about the game. Of course, there are a few exceptions, but this is generally how it is.

And what is with the main protaganists looking like females? It's sometimes hard to tell the difference between heroes and heroines. Is this some kind of trend? I might be un-PC, but playing as a character who looks like a drag queen doesn't interest me. What happened?

This is a symptom of the relative absence of machoism in Japanese culture. Japanese society teaches men that they are not to be aggressive, get overly angry, or really show much range of emotion at all. As a result idealized characters present the Japanese cultural idea of the perfect people being sort of mono-gendered for anything that is not explicitly made for the adults-only crowd, because then you get stuff where men are macho to the extreme and women are sex objects. RPGs are pretty famous for not really having much of a middle ground.

Help me to understand the boringness of this genre. I remember when they were rarely released stateside. Until the highly overrated Final Fantasy 7 was released. I've tried TONS of them and usually get bored by the second dungeon. I think it's just considered a "cool" thing by gamers to say they like and collect rpgs, yet deep down inside they are bored to tears. Who has time to play all of these things anyway? Go ahead and hate, I don't care. Rpgs are boring.

RPGs are made for people who want to experience a slower paced game. Same as there are slow paced movies, novels, manga, anime, tv shows. If the slower pace doesn't fit your liking, then don't buy. Who has time to play all these things? Well, good question. I play about 2-3 RPGs a year, so on average, so it takes me usually around 4 months or so to finish one. Of course this doesn't take into account other games I'm playing as well as new RPGs that keep piling up and my buying older RPGs that I missed the first time around. Even if I stopped buying RPGs tomorrow (which won't happen) my backlog of RPGs would probably last at least the next ten years.

But that's the great thing about being a retro gamer: it doens't matter if a game is old the first time you play it because the experience will be new to you.

[Aussie2B]

Unless things have really changed around here, I wouldn't say "most" of the regulars here are diehard fans of RPGs, let alone the sort to take what you're saying as "blasphemous". We're not little kids here, nobody cares if you don't like what they like. It's okay, as long as you're not being a troll about it and insulting others for their tastes.

If you find RPGs so boring, I don't understand why you've subjected yourself to so many. That's rather masochistic. Just move on. Either that or maybe try to get recommendations based on what you have liked. If you prefer ones with action, play RPGs with real-time battle systems, like Star Ocean or the Tales games. Then again, if you like Dragon Quest 8, then I'm totally confused as to what you would or wouldn't like.

Contrary to what you may believe, RPG fans don't necessarily love every RPG in existence just because it's in said genre. We find some boring too. Not all RPGs are created equal. I love RPGs but I've disliked plenty. Like you, I enjoy Mystic Quest, but I've yet to play a numbered Final Fantasy that I've thought was any better than so-so.

As for pretty boy heroes, chalk that up to cultural differences. Muscular bald meatheads don't fly in Japan like they do in the US (unless we're talking Cho Aniki haha). Also for the very mainstream RPGs like Final Fantasy, a sizable chunk of the players are female in Japan, so the developers are trying to throw a bone to them (in the same way that the female characters in skimpy outfits are targeting the male players). But there are plenty of options if you want to play as a more masculine lead, although it's a rather shallow, hypocritical thing to take issue with in my opinion (considering the treatment of female characters is infinitely worse and pretty much nobody complains except for female gamers who are then drowned out by male gamers who feel threatened).

[Edmond Dantes]

Well, I'm speaking here as a guy who played both PC and Console RPG titles, and also as a sorta-ex-RPG-fan.

When I was young I loved the damn things, to the point where they were almost all I would play (which used to irritate my friends). And actually, thinking about it now, I think their "boringness" is one of their strengths. When you've just come home from a day of school, you don't necessarily want to sit through a shmup that may challenge you, a platformer that may annoy you, or a fighting game that may enrage you. RPGs are almost always driven by your ability to think (at least enough to choose an option from a menu) and so they are both easy enough to play and have an elitist appeal because you can say they're "smart" games (using tenuous logic that only other gamers will see the B.S. in).

These days... well, I still like RPGs from the 16-Bit era and before, but dear lord don't ask me to play anything past the Playstation.

One problem I have with RPGs as they are now can be summed up in one word: "Bloat." RPG designers seem to think the proper approach is to elaborate the fuck out of everything to the point of tedium. Case in point, compare spells like "Ultima" and "Holy" (or Pearl in some versions) in Final Fantasy VI to the equivalent spells in later games. What used to be a cool, quick graphic somehow became a 30-minute-cutscene. It makes me not even want to get a parrot because the benefits of using the spell are up against the con of "having to sit through that animation AGAIN."

I've found lately that I have a new respect for NES RPGs, which tends to be seen as a dark era for the genre because people are wusses. Yes I said wusses. See one thing in 8-Bit RPGs is they usually CHALLENGED you. Yes you could sit around and grind, but then its your own fault if you're bored. These games expected you to walk boldly forward until you were outmatched, demanded you effectively managed your resources, and really made you consider, "do I have enough to see me through to the end of this dungeon or should I head back right now?" And if you chose poorly, you died. They also demanded you use statuses and spells for strategic benefit, unlike a lot of modern games where that's impossible.

And don't even get me started on the world maps. There was a time I would've considered more exploration a good thing, but consider this: When I want to cross the boring, lifeless desert region in Final Fantasy VI, it takes only a few seconds. In Final Fantasy XII though, its an ordeal, complete with subplots and side-quests, and if you don't explore every nook and cranny then you'll feel like you're missing something. Final Fantasy XII was actually the last game in the series I found myself enjoying, but the desert section caused me to lose interest.

Hell, subquests and subplots themselves are kind of a problem. It's almost like there's too MUCH to do, and you feel bad if you miss out on any of it.

But like the topic starter, I find RPGs are best when they do something new (although I hated Chrono Cross. There's "something new," and then there's "broken, stupid, and irritating innovation just for the sake of innovation without consideration for if it even works"). Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun for the Sega Genesis is a game I can still come back to because its core gameplay makes it fun to play. Granted, I have a soft spot for SNES staples like FF6 and Lufia but those are games I play more for nostalgia, whereas something like Shadowrun I can actually have fun with.

... Wow, its starting to sound like I'm favoring American RPGs. When did *that* happen?

[Daria]

Huh. I must not have read your entire post the first time. Didn't catch the insult at the end until Satoshi Matrix quoted it.

Personally I've been actively collecting RPGs for 15 years. I certainly didn't get into it to be cool. I've been playing pen and paper RPGs since I was 6. Grew up with Dragon Warrior and Ultima on the NES, and seem to be the only child in the US who had a Genesis just for it's RPG library.

For the most part I don't play JRPGs for their stories, they tend to be pretensious and preachy (especially square stuff). I do however enjoy the humor, characters, puzzles, graphics, exploration, and battles. They're slower paced usually, but I find that relaxing.

I also enjoy collecting RPGs, especially the older stuff, because they're all very different. I get a real kick out of stuff like Pinball RPG hybrids and other crazy genre bending games.

[buzz_n64]

I'm with you on not liking RPG games. I've played some, never beat any. The only one I kind of enjoy is Super Mario RPG, mainly because it's a Mario game, and there are other side games that are not turn based "action." I have rid myself of every turn based RPG in my collection except for Super Mario RPG.

[bb_hood]

What i really like the most about RPGs are the monsters and battles. Most of the time I dont care about the story.
I personally think Final Fantasy VII is a really good game, the battle system was good. The characters are great except for barrett, he was stupid. The monsters were awesome, the ruby and emerald weapons are gigantic. It was alot of fun trying to figure out how to beat them, and very rewarding when me and my brother did. I can see why people say its boring, the load times on the enemy battles can become very annoying. The music is really good also. The game does get alot better once you reach the 3rd disc. Im my opinion its probably the last really good final fantasy game, FF8 is super boring, super stupid story, and the monsters and battles kinda suck.

I've found lately that I have a new respect for NES RPGs, which tends to be seen as a dark era for the genre because people are wusses. Yes I said wusses. See one thing in 8-Bit RPGs is they usually CHALLENGED you. Yes you could sit around and grind, but then its your own fault if you're bored. These games expected you to walk boldly forward until you were outmatched, demanded you effectively managed your resources, and really made you consider, "do I have enough to see me through to the end of this dungeon or should I head back right now?" And if you chose poorly, you died. They also demanded you use statuses and spells for strategic benefit, unlike a lot of modern games where that's impossible.

I Agree 100%, thats one reason I love NES rpgs, they are just so badass. Final Fantasy is one game that will stomp you hard if you dont know what to do. Even if your party is leveled up more than enough you can get randomly wiped out at any point in the game.

[The Adventurer]

When I was younger it was the rare RPG that managed to break through my general feeling of boredom when it came to RPGs. Paper Mario most in particular. Even quirky games like Chrono Trigger and Earthbound never managed to capture my young imagination for long enough to actually finish them.

But now, that I'm an old god damn man, I've actually finally broke though the barrier and found a nice region of RPG space that actually can keep my attention for 50+ hours. Mostly thanks to the 3DS and ATLUS. The Shin Megami Tensei (but NOT Persona) series and Ethrian Odyssey have all managed too keep my attention to end (or at least whatever ending I make it too on the first play through). Turns out my major RPG turn-on is first person dungeon crawling. Who the fuck knew? And who but ATLUS still makes these damn things? The closest modern western equivalent I've been able to find is Might & Magic X. Which isn't bad.

Saying all RPGs are boring is completely short sighted. It just means you haven't played any RPGs yet that have captured your imagination. Try some Shin Megami Tensei titles. You might surprised how unlike your typical Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest RPGs can be. Or even something really quirky like Paper Mario or South Park the Stick of Truth. Not all RPGs are made alike.

[tom]

RPGs are meant to be played on computers, either Apple ][, A8, C64, IBM, ST or Amiga. You need keys for decent role playing. Try it and you won't regret it.
They just don't work on consoles.

Anyway, JRPGs are the worst out there, ok the Dragon Quest series is based on Wizardry and Ultima, but they cannot match elegance and greatness of US RPGs. Phantasy Star was not so bad though. And DragonStomper.

[FieryReign]

Can't explain my reasoning for liking Dragon Quest 8 as much as I did. It's everything I hate in an rpg: random battles, simplistic battle system, and the need for constant grinding. I guess the vibrant graphics, great soundtrack, and likeable characters and storyline held my interest to the end. Can't stand any game in the series before that and part 9 was another snooze-fest that I couldn't sit through. Most of the Final Fantasy games have that stupid ATB system that I hate. They expect you to stategize while putting a time limit on you? Sorry, that is lame and unfair. Most of the time I would be fumbling through menus, while the enemies would continue to take free shots at me. The job systems is another thing that just confuses me. Too complicated for their own good and pretty much require some type of guide. Don't even get me started on the +1ATT -2DEF stats they put on weapons and armor. Why are there so many damn stats in these games? Too much micromanagement.

So, lack of Machoism in Japanese culture is the reason they started designing male characters the way they do? Dressing them up like a female dominatrix and making them pretty is supposed to relate to a female audience? Nah, male character designs weren't like that before, they were usually spiky-haired dudes wearing a red/blue outfit. There is some kind of homosexual vibe going on somewhere, either with the character designers or the main programmers themselves. Tidus from FF10 was such a wuss it made me hate the game, not to mention he looked like a young Meg Ryan. Ashley from Vagrant Story had one of the most ridiculous outfits in a game I've ever seen, inspired by the Marilyn Manson clothing line. Vaan from FF12 just made me laugh, that was just blatant... They do know other countries/cultures play these games right? Why simply cater them to the machismo-less Japanese culture?

I tried a couple Megami Tensei Whatever games. Persona 4 had a decent battle system and good tunes. The persona combining thing was too deep and complex for my tastes, I would often create something that was weaker than my original monsters. Not to mention it would sometimes fail for no apparent reason. And bringing back high school memories and making friends turned me off, so I turned the game off. I tried a Digital Devil game but don't recall much besides a complicated battle system and boredom.

1st person rpgs always seemed to be too samey to me. Dungeons that all looked the same and confusing maze layouts where I would often get lost. I was quite addicted to a game called Mazes of Fate on the GBA. That game was cool. Until the game just froze on me and wouldn't let me advance past a certain point. I might revisit it someday on an emu, or look for some games that are similar.

[kupomogli]

I'm an RPG fan and while I like a lot of them, there are a lot that I don't like. I mostly like RPGs for their gameplay rather than the storyline and my more preferred titles have more strategy than grinding.

You mentioned DDS. Digital Devil Saga, much like SMT Nocturne, work on a press turn system. If you have three characters in your party, then you have three turns. If you do a critical hit, hit the enemies weakness, or pass the players turn, half of a turn is used. If the damage is voided, then two turns are used. If reflected or absorbed, all three turns are used, and all four turns if playing SMT Nocturne. The game basically rewards you for playing better and penalizes you for playing worse, so even if you grind you may have a much harder time than someone else who plays the game better.

There are a lot of overrated RPGs though and a lot of games that get a ridiculous amount of praise are super niche titles that most of these people probably praise for the reason that they heard it was good and nothing more. There are so many sheep out there that will jump on the opinion of others rather than forming their own.

Valkyrie Profile is one ridiculously overrated RPG where you input attacks by pressing on the face buttons, each one controlling a character with one to three attacks. Now at first the idea behind this seems ingenious, but after the 1000th time having the same combination of button presses against every enemy entered and seeing those cutscene attacks again and again and again, it just gets really boring. The game consists of nothing more than having Lenneth search for an area that someone has recently died so she can recruit souls for Valhalla, you see a storyline about how this person died, and then they join your party, you might use them and then send them to Valhalla. There are very small bits and pieces of the storyline that's any good, but overall this segmented storyline is pretty meh.

Another overrated title, which you've mentioned that you've played, is Vagrant Story. The storyline to this game and cutscenes are great, excellent music, good overall design, and overall good gameplay except for one thing. The games focus on grinding your weapons kills the game. When you get around 40% of the game, if you didn't upgrade and grind your weapons, you'll be stuck at one of three bosses, or atleast this was the location I was stuck at each time I restarted the game later on and gave it yet another chance. The people who legitimately like this game might give it a free pass because everything else is so good.

A recent game that's pretty crappy but highly praised is Ni No Kuni. This game has the most generic cliche storyline of any RPG and it's borderline. It's bearable, but it's not good. The combat though is fu**ing horrible. If anything, this garbage game gets all of it's praise for no reason than it's graphics design is from Studio Ghibli.

---

Here are a couple great games imo.

Brigandine The Legend of Forsena and Grand Edition. Grand Edition is a remake of The Legend of Forsena and released on the exact same console as the first, only as a Japanese exclusive. The Legend of Forsena was released in the US. Both games are amazing and my favorite games of all time. Now first off, if you're looking for a game with strategy but also not very difficult to get into, then look no further than Brigandine.

You choose one of six countries and each country owns a certain part of the continent, all broken up between cities similar to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms games. On the world map, each month you have two phases and each knight can only act once that month. The knight can either from one city to another, go on a quest which is random event which may give you a special item, new knight, or get them wounded, or attack a bordering city. You can still summon monsters and organize your knights currently equipped monster units and currently equipped item, but you can only quest, move, or attack once. If you attack a bordering city with your knights, then it opens up a trpg map with hexagons that your units will move across until they meet and either win or lose against the enemy. You can lose a battle in this game and keep playing. Below is a video of mine. I turn off all the 3D animations as battles would be significantly longer. In Grand Edition all these animations are done on the battle map where the 2D animations attack one another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ-NHkMnJ7I

MS Saga. The storyline on this game has multiple anime and video game cliches, but it's atleast decent. Gameplay is the highlight of this game though. At the very start you're in mobile suits like GMs and Zakus. Now, you're probably thinking, but I don't know anything about Gundam. You really don't have to. The game uses suits from G Gundam, Gundam Wing, etc, but the game is its own IP and if you've never seen another Gundam series in your live it wouldn't make a difference. Outside of combat there's your world map, dungeons, etc, but there's also your mech customization. Mech customization uses a Diablo style backpack where the mobile suit can only equip so and so squares by so and so squares of inventory. You have unlimited space in your items, but this is how much the mobile suit can bring to combat. Below will be an image to get a better representation of this.

When in combat your characters can attack with any of their equipped weapons, but characters also have techs(spells) and boost skills. Characters have TP(MP) and they also start with 2 points(can't remember what it's called at this time,) in their boost meter. The boost points increase by two for every character in the front row and one for every character in the back row and the character can hold a max of 10 during battle(which resets to 2 at the beginning of the next.) You can switch characters anytime its your characters turn with one of the back row characters, but it takes 1 boost of the character switching out to do so. There are various skills from more powerful melee attacks, melee attacks that go first, ignore defense, more powerful ranged attacks, stat reducing range attacks, attack all beam attacks, beam protection, round protection, get enemies to attack one character so it defends and counters melee, etc, all the way up to characters going all out with end game skills that have them attacking with each armament on their mobile suit. End game enemies have a ton of HP, so most of the end game turns to boosting until you can do all out attacks to kill them, but the remainder of the game was great to the point that even random battles rquired equit a bit of strategy once you got far enough.

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/gundam/...ens/gto057.jpg

While I like these games right here, I like a lot of the Final Fantasy games(3, 10, and 13 are pretty bleh though. 12 is also but I think I need to give it another chance and maybe I can get into it) and a lot of other games, but there's also a lot of games that I don't like, so just because I'm an RPG fan, doesn't mean I love everything RPG. There are crappy RPGs also and like I stated, many of the overrated ones don't deserve the praise they receive imo.

[Dr. BaconStein]

Zelda isn't really an RPG... It's more action-adventure. You would probably prefer those types of games instead.

As Satoshi Matrix said, I think the main difference between RPG's and other games is that they tend to be slower and more time consuming. They're meant to be played over the course of days/weeks/months instead of a few sittings. The battle systems aren't always fast-paced and hands-on, and sometimes there's more thinking involved than doing. Sort of like a tabletop game.

I don't play many RPG's myself (Paper Mario: TTYD was fun and I managed to make it through Pokémon Colosseum fairly quickly, but I think it's because my cousins who are huge Pokémon fans were there with me to help out at the time) but if you totally can't get into the genre, there are plenty of action-adventure games with RPG elements, or you could play spin-offs of RPG series.

While typing the previous paragraph I also realized the social aspect plays a part as well. A lot of RPG's feature multiplayer, and it might help to have someone with you to explain things or just joke around with.

[wizardofwor1975]

I Agree 100%, thats one reason I love NES rpgs, they are just so badass.

Doesn't get much better than the good old NES. Crystalis definitely comes to mind. Since FieryReign likes Zelda he should give Crystalis a shot. Its fast pace & action-RPG style gameplay could be just the ticket.

http://www.ign.com/top-100-nes-games/42.html
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/cry.../crystalis.htm

Tanooki said, "too hard to get a TV RPG with a nearly 3 year old around."

No lie about the 3 year old thing. Man I'm glad my kids are older now and can be my wingman on 2 player games.

I almost forgot, what about Golvellius on the SMS. Its a great action-RPG plus its on the iphone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtqh45f2kRU

I'm not sure if Golvellius is on Android though???

[FieryReign]

Doesn't get much better than the good old NES. Crystalis definitely comes to mind. Since FieryReign likes Zelda he should give Crystalis a shot. Its fast pace & action-RPG style gameplay could be just the ticket.

http://www.ign.com/top-100-nes-games/42.html
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/cry.../crystalis.htm

Tanooki said, "too hard to get a TV RPG with a nearly 3 year old around."

No lie about the 3 year old thing. Man I'm glad my kids are older now and can be my wingman on 2 player games.

I almost forgot, what about Golvellius on the SMS. Its a great action-RPG plus its on the iphone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtqh45f2kRU

I'm not sure if Golvellius is on Android though???

It's on android, with an emulator... I played both of those games, didn't really care for Golvellius though.

[Rickstilwell1]

I think RPGs with a little more choose your own adventure elements are the better ones. Games like Suikoden II where you can make all kinds of choices that will affect how characters react, which route you get through the game, and who will or will not join your team. The other nice thing about Suikoden was that you didn't have to spend nearly as long grinding because characters would level up based on percentages / ratios of your characters' strength to the enemies' strength instead of a set number of points. And you could always gamble for more money if you didn't feel like fighting for it.

I would say if you liked the stories of RPGs but not the battle systems, the best solution is to just use cheat devices to max your characters' stats and just run thru the story like it was an adventure game. That's what I did when I was a teenager first trying them out.

[Aussie2B]

So, lack of Machoism in Japanese culture is the reason they started designing male characters the way they do? Dressing them up like a female dominatrix and making them pretty is supposed to relate to a female audience? Nah, male character designs weren't like that before, they were usually spiky-haired dudes wearing a red/blue outfit. There is some kind of homosexual vibe going on somewhere, either with the character designers or the main programmers themselves. Tidus from FF10 was such a wuss it made me hate the game, not to mention he looked like a young Meg Ryan. Ashley from Vagrant Story had one of the most ridiculous outfits in a game I've ever seen, inspired by the Marilyn Manson clothing line. Vaan from FF12 just made me laugh, that was just blatant... They do know other countries/cultures play these games right? Why simply cater them to the machismo-less Japanese culture?

Dude, I don't know what to tell you besides that you're being really ignorant and offensive here. I'm no mod, but I think you'd be wise to lay off complaining about characters looking like "drag queens" or games having a "homosexual vibe".

The poster who said that there is no machismo is Japan is wrong. If anything, Japan overall is a more sexist country than the US, with even stricter ideas on gender roles. There is absolutely a concern with masculinity in Japan, but it's expressed in different ways. You can't apply your Western mindset to an entirely different culture. I already explained to you that the effeminate characters are more a reflection of young women's tastes than anything else. Look into bishounen characters, look into j-pop/k-pop boy bands, etc. Generally speaking, Asian men aren't as large and heavyset as white men and black men, and this is reflected in what Asian women generally find attractive. Not only do the female players not want some ripped gym addict but the male players, mostly teens, want characters they can relate to. If they WERE trying to appeal to gay culture at all, THAT is when you'd see the beefy muscular characters because that is the stereotype that exists for homosexuality in Japan. Look up the comedian Hard Gay, look up the Cho Aniki series (which is also intended as comedy), look up the bara scene. So basically the whole Western notion of "big muscular guy = straight, pretty boy = gay" is flipped in Japan.

The reason why there were fewer pretty boy characters in RPGs in the past is simply a reflection of there being fewer female players back then and Japanese RPGs, over time, straying further and further from their Western inspirations and taking on more of a manga/anime aesthetic.

But like I said before, there are PLENTY of options. If you don't like pretty boy heroes, then Final Fantasy and other big-name Square Enix releases aren't for you because, as said, they have a sizable female demographic behind them. And no, they're not going to start catering to foreign markets over the market in which their games sell the best; that would just be poor business sense. If you can't accept these realities, move on.