"Outgrowing" the JRPG

[Jorpho]

I'll look into whether I can find this game and if I can find a way to run it or not

Use Exult and you'll be able to run it on your PSP, your cellphone, your toaster, etc.

[mobiusclimber]

Ooooh thanks for the link! I love emulation on the PSP.

[Tallise]

I Find that many of the JRPG games now-a-days are honestly aimed to a much younger set of people than they used to. Zelda for example, if you look how it has evolved it seems to have been family friendly for the most part but recently has been stuffed into a kitty friendly suit, ignoring the rest of the gaming world. Toon Link is the new Link, his adventures becoming an skill-less tale of other cute but somewhat bland characters. Even OOT was made for the whole family, not just the adults, and not just the small children.

I think FF has started on a similar decline, only ignoring the rest of the gaming world and feeding into the hard core fans who don`t care if the game is amazing, if its FF they automatically love it. They haven`t slipped as far into the kids-only genre yet, but im sure they are not far off, as most of their fans seem to be younger teens and pre-teens. One of their other curses (so I have been told) is they draw on stories from their other games some times and if you haven`t been following the series or were looking for something FRESH you may feel SOL. I never got into FF aside form playing FF: X (i think), so I`m not sure if this is true, but it probably is knowing how abused the FF name is.

Adressing Chrono-Trigger, I love that game, I have memories of it from when i was 5, watching my older brother play it, and to this day still can not beat the damn final boss e.e (maybe I just never want it to end lol). It is a very unique amazing game, but it is understandable that you might get tired of it when the market has been spammed with so many games not even trying to live up to classics such as Chrono Trigger, older FF, Secret of Mana, and Old Zelda. Most games now (especially if marketed through Nintendo) Are not made to beat out the rest of the market by means of ultimate game developement and mastery of techniques. Now-a-days Games are made to draw in the masses: They are shorter, generally easier, have generic plots, and are marketed to `regular folk` not gamers, especially not OLDER gamers.

As a 19 year old, female gamer I`m still in that `teen demographic` of cool and pwning yet really enjoy cute-pie`kid`games while clinging to old pixel graphics and single to two button control. However, I have recently found my self drawn into Fall Out 3 as an alternative to my love of older RPG`s. It has an interesting plot and customized main character, it has a long list of tasks and side missions, great graphics (in my opinion) and several things have been added and improved in the past year through online updates (I play x-box, rather than PC, but its the same story for both). Fall Out is a newer game that i find similar to the RPG`s of our past, and the makers really focused on detail and quality, reaching to a more serious crowd rather than the masses of fresh non-gaming G rated families. Faster games, however, such as Call of Duty MW2 and Left 4 Dead have sucked me in. I still play old games though. I have chronotrigger for DS on my x-mas wish list and visit my local game store to buy classics for my nes, snes, intelevision, atari and N64 on a regular basis. I just bought 4 games today, all for my Nes.
I think JRPG has been stretched and mutalated (and older popular series so horribly abused) so much it`s very easy to feel tired of it.
Maybe take a break for a while. Play some games you wouldn`t have concidered before, and in a year or two you can go back to the games you used to love. Keep in mind the suppossed declining quality associated with changing demographics though. New games may not ever make you feel the same as older ones have, and older ones may feels spoiled, when compared the their newer counterparts.

[NayusDante]

Fall Out is a newer game that i find similar to the RPG`s of our past, and the makers really focused on detail and quality, reaching to a more serious crowd rather than the masses of fresh non-gaming G rated families.

Calling Fallout "serious" is a stretch, if you ask me. There's no doubt that the subject matter is intended for older gamers, but to be honest, I think that the appeal is more skewed toward the teen demographic.

At any rate, welcome to the forum.


I've been playing FFXII the past two days. Not really sure what to think of it yet. It's like FFXI, except not as good. The story sounds alright, but it hasn't gotten me to really care about it yet. It's not *completely* fitting the JRPG mold, but it's not completely fresh either.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Never thought of Zelda as an RPG. Adventure all the way.

Can't help myself...

has been stuffed into a kitty friendly suit

[Tallise]

Calling Fallout "serious" is a stretch, if you ask me. There's no doubt that the subject matter is intended for older gamers, but to be honest, I think that the appeal is more skewed toward the teen demographic.

At any rate, welcome to the forum.


I've been playing FFXII the past two days. Not really sure what to think of it yet. It's like FFXI, except not as good. The story sounds alright, but it hasn't gotten me to really care about it yet. It's not *completely* fitting the JRPG mold, but it's not completely fresh either.

Well Serious may have been the wrong word, I don`t mean to say Fall Out is Hardcore serious, but it is more so than the new Zelda and FF games for sure...

And thank you for the Welcoming :3

[NayusDante]

Well, I've been playing FFXII for a while, and I'm probably a little more than halfway through it. It's definitely a mixed bag for me. I don't really feel drawn into the story at all, and the characters aren't that interesting. It's overall decent, but not really great. It does feel a little more grown up than FFX, so I'll give it that.

I'm taking a break from FFXII to play Lost Odyssey, which so far, is more what I'm looking for. It's fresh, interesting, and different, but still holds to the JRPG conventions. I just finished disc one, and it's been very enjoyable so far. There's some pretty good humor here, for a JRPG.

[Platinum]

I haven't completed ANY RPG since..... 2004. That was Mario & Luigi for the GBA, and even that pushed my patience.

I was never really big into the genre either, by the time I actually knew what RPGs were, I was playing games like Metroid, Duke Nukem, Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye.

Now, I hate the genre, period. I can (for sentimental reasons) play Pokemon red/blue/yellow though, sometimes, maybe once in a year. Just because I logged hundreds of hours on it when I was younger.

I'm just sick of the same old cliches, art styles, stories, and gameplay. Every now and then I change preferred genres (right now I am playing games like Mario, Alex Kidd, Metroid). RPGs.......... nowhere on my list of genres to play. I personally don't care about japanese mythology, or whiney little 17 year olds, or highi-pitched 10 year old girls. I don't care. Metroid and Metal Gear are my two favorite series. Both are japanese by origin. But I don't hate them. My hatred for RPGs in general does not stem from hatred of Japanese things, like some people accuse me of.

That's okay, while my friend waits a whole day to level up 3 levels in FFXI, I can finish the new Chronicles of Riddick: Assault On Dark Athena! On one sitting!

[Jisho23]

Honestly, I think the death of the Jrpg is a combination of western RPGs getting better (in the console realm, PC has always been a somewhat exclusive club for WRPGs) and JRPGs compromising too much. We've all seen the maps of FFXIII by now and can plainly see how linear the games have become.

I never liked RPGs because of the random encounters, the stat crunching, etc. For me it was always the exploration aspect. Thats what drove the oldest games in the genre (before there was even a distinction between the two hemispheres). Once you lose any degree of exploration (note: this does not imply sandboxing) then you are effectively shuttling characters too and from places and if you die you just crunch numbers. Wizardry, Dragon Warrior, Chrono Trigger; these are all games DRIVEN by exploration (some more than others obviously).

For some reason, these games have totally lost sight of that.

[Ravenswood]

Maybe it's the American in me, but to me "story" is a couple pegs down the list of what I look for in an RPG.

This.

As long as the dungeon crawling is fun, and the battle system and gameplay can keep me hooked, I don't really care about why my generic blue haired hero has to save the crystals from a metrosexual in a black coat.