Lost odysseys: are JRPGs about to explode?

TG argues that no, it won’t. It’s a very very pretty game, but at the end of the day, it’s just the same old grind-fest.

I agree with TG, I love JRPG’s and I can’t wait for this game, but all my friends show no interest in it at all. Skyrim has ruined the RPG genre for them, they now expect all RPG’s to be like it.

“but now I’m either too busy to commit to the length of your typical JRPG”
I hear this quite often from my friends, which baffles me, as they have sat and put 100+ hours into Skyrim.

“crack open that borrowed copy of Valkyria Chronicles”

Do It!

“I’m a big fan of the JRPG genre – with Mistwalker’s impeccable Lost Odyssey standing as one of my favourite games of the generation”

Oh, how I agree with you on that. Brilliant article, as always.
I’ve played Final Fantasy VI 4 times in total, to get each secret, each character, etc. I felt that I lost my appeal towards traditional JRPGs… but truth is… it’s just that there haven’t been good JRPGs at all lately (or only very few).

When I discovered LOST ODYSSEY (most underrated game of this generation in my opinion), I felt like playing a new Final Fantasy in HD. Got sucked into it just like old times and played it for dozens and dozens of hours, without counting. I’ve bought Ni no Kuni’s collector edition, even though I know I won’t have time to play it before next summer, but just to support the effort (and because I loved the demo so much, with my 5 years old daughter amazed at it).

And unfortunately, I played Oblivion, Skyrim… and while the gameplay is a LOT of fun and opens a lot of possibility… I felt that the story was REALLY weak, as if it was really minor, in the background or even non-existent at times. WHATEVER you do, it doesn’t matter, and things don’t change.

Seriously, played the sh*t out of both games, and see the exact same dialogs from all characters really feel awkward. You’re supposed to “save the day”, go into an epic quest… and in the end, it feels like you made absolutely no difference AT ALL. Not even a “oh thank you” from villagers or stronghold chiefs. It’s highly frustrating (to me).

I prefer a well directed story over a sandbox game where nothing you do ever matters.

@orakaa I recommend you try Fallout 3. Same team, but the story and mini-stories are infinitely more satisfying. I felt the same way about Skyrim. It has a nice overworld, but the combat is too basic, and I think I found only one or two mini-stories in the game that were decent.

Why not to make it multiplatform first of all?

“I recommend you try Fallout 3.”

Lol

JRPGs as a genre seems to have remembered what it is and what it shouldn’t be. Real-time combat is not a natural progression from turn based, it’s just another valid approach. I love me a bit of turn based.

Another fan of Lost Odyssey here too. That was very old school in a lot of ways but very well done … is it available on Games on Demand?

I’m revisiting White Knight Chronicles currently – which is actually a lot of fun behind the awfully told story. That fuses the traditional JRPG stuff with MMO like elements and combat.

Dave Cook might well argue that, but behind the first 5-7 hours, where literally ALL of the voice-acting and Studio Gibli stuff is, it may seem that way.

The other 30 hours? No bespoke animation, almost no spoken dialogue and generic-as-hell, repetitive battles, limited upgrades and gameplay needless of strategy: not so much.

Interested to find out how much of it he played before labelling it so worthy, because the head of this game is an entirely different animal to the body.

If I had to nail it down, I’d say the major sticking point for me is, a WRPG usually allows you to progress through the main quest quite quickly, and there’s loads of side shit there for you for when ya want a break. By contrast, JRPGs seem like the main-quest is really long, and occasionally, to get over difficulty spikes, you have to go and grind out time-consuming random bullshit which compounds the feeling of the story dragging on.

Even the dialogue is just too long. In other types of games, a bugbear of mine is every time there’s a long cutscene, I feel like screaming “Let me get on with it FFS!” at the screen. In JRPGs, it’s these long LOOOONG dialogue trees. ;/

@Erthazus Are you saying Fallout 3 has a bad story? Are you saying that Skyrim has better stories within it than Fallout 3? Really?

One or two locations alone in Fallout 3 trump all of Skyrim in terms of storytelling.

@8
Interested to find out how much of it you have played before making that comment.

#6 has a point, why isn’t it multiplat, inkl. WiiU and handhelds? It was first released on the DS and never available in english. Now you have the beefed-up version but only on one system? Come on!

@10, Both games have bad stories. Fallout 3 is Oblivion with guns compared to the old games (Fallout 1,2) where storytelling was something cool, fresh and interesting. Dialogs were simple and attached too much to your intelligence ability or speech skill.

@12
DS version was a different game, same for of story arc and setting but a different game developed separately – at least according to the wiki.

I never liked any of Gibli’s animes. I really, really hate the art-style. It looks like old-man anime drawings to me. That is reason enough for me not to check out this game. Apart from it being a JRPG i mean.

Something needs to happen. JRPGs might have a story that is better told, yet the dialogs and characters are mostly written for mentally challenged people and children. I find them to be extremely boring, even Persona 3/4 had a few of the cliche character. Though they had a few twists and turns that would separate them from the shitty rest.

And then there’s the combat, aka the grindfest, yes, my favorite Persona games also feature a lot of that.

I don’t know about you, but combat in Western RPG’s always seems to be more fun. Apart from old school RPG’s that are just as tedious.

@14 of course it was a different game developed separately. The cutscenes and gameplay is the same, imo. But it’s still the Ni No Kuni game and just different developement because of the limited plattform.

@11 Completed.

I’m not big jRPG fan, but I enjoyed couple FF games – VI, VII, but I didn’t like XII at all… Don’t know why.

And I really, really like Xenoblad Chronicles but… I don’t know if it’s 100% proper jRPG. Fighting was more like in action games there.

@15
“Something needs to happen.”

Maybe you just accept that it’s a genre you don’t like and play something you do? Why should a genre – a well loved one at that – change because you don’t like it?

@19: Because videogames have to adapt to new things and try to actually battle the western market otherwise they will disappear?

I’m not saying they should do the exact same thing, but something new would be interesting.

@20
They do change, there is loads of variety within the JRPG genre. Very rare that a battle system will be the same even within two games in the same series.

One man’s grindfest is the core that makes another man’s game though. Have you tried some of the bigger action RPG examples? The Tales series for example?

Nope, never liked the mediocre art-style.

To add to the conversation: I don’t think the MMORPG battle system a lot of JRPGs seem to use is the right approach either.

@15: “I never liked any of Gibli’s animes. I really, really hate the art-style. It looks like old-man anime drawings to me.”

*speechless*

*needs to sit down*

Personally, can’t wait to try this game. Hayao Miyazaki touched this thing, so I should do the same.

@23, He likes new DMC. What can you say.

Hayao Miyazaki also touches his own ass, does that mean you would too?

@22
What about Nier?

@26: Never had the chance to check it out. Is it worth it? What’s different about it compared to your usual JRPG?

@27
Very underrated. Battles are proper real-time – just one character, story and quests really quite nicely done with some particularly memorable side quests. Should be very cheap to pick up now too.

Gonna check it out, thanks. I hope it plays nothing like Folklore, because i was immensely disappointed by the combat. Soooo boring. The forced Six-Axis controls didn’t help either.

But the art-direction is pretty unique and the music is fantastic. The story seems to be interesting, though i doubt i will finish it and see the whole picture.

So far i have Valkyria Chronicles and Nier on my list. I’m only limited to two platforms, so that might be a problem. PS3 and PC. Always wanted to check out Lost Odyssey.

@28 Best part about Nier is the music. Brilliant soundtrack.

I spent from Christmas to mid-January beating Square’s The Last Remnant (PC version). Although the game has plenty of flaws, I couldn’t help but feel that if Square took all the good ideas (or at least complimentary ideas) from FFXII, The Last Remnant, FFXIII and Final Fantasy Tactics they could have actually produced an outstanding game.

I think Square put too much effort into completely retooling their games instead of taking a step back and looking at their past to see what worked, what didn’t, what was a good idea and what wasn’t and what features across different games might have worked better if they were paired together.

Be careful with Nier.

It’s basically an interesting story with some amazing music housed in a shell of utterly terrible gameplay. It’s good… so long as you’re willing to ignore everything immensely wrong with it. Some will, some won’t.

@30
I really liked some of the side quests too. The lighthouse one in particular was quite touching.

Oh and the way they implemented faster travel. That was awesome

As for the JRPG genre…

I think as gaming has become more popular, our consumption of games has become a lot quicker too. We speed through games because we want to play the next big thing coming out, to the point where many of us end up with quite an extensive backlog of unfinished games.

Ten years ago, I wouldn’t leave a single game unfinished, and I wouldn’t even bother buying a new one until it was. Now? I’m sitting on a dozen unfinished RPGs that I never have the time to get around to touching…

Why is this relevant? Because I think the JRPG genre is doing just fine.

think people just aren’t aware of how much fantastic stuff is out there. The DS and PSP are practically drowning in the stuff, and both the PS3 and Xbox 360 have been home to some pretty great games in the genres. Sure, unlike first person shooters there isn’t a new one coming out every second week, but considering the time it takes to play them, thats probably a good thing.

And complaints about the genre are just as true of any genre. There are plenty of terrible western RPGs, and many WRPGs are also depressingly simplistic now… ironic considering how JRPGs were very much influenced by the D&D formula, but simplified.

I could name at least two dozen decent JRPGs released this generation that are worth playing, as long as you’re platform agnostic. The genre never want anywhere. I think Ni No Kuni is a great little title, but it isn’t going to set the charts alight or certainly make JRPGs big in the west again,

I just wish we had more games like Vagrant Story. ._.

@32: Can’t be worse than Folklore. It. Can’t. Be.

All i care is that iam still waiting for dark cloud 3, and persona 5 for that matter.

Having said that i think JRPG games this gen has been strong, on all consoles from last oddisey on 360, to valkyria chronicles on ps3, xenoblade on wii, there are really gems of this genre, and the great thing about them is that they are new ips.

Of course theres a lits of other great games which are also new ips like folklore, nier, blue dragon, eternal sonata, last story, etc and the usual suspects like tales of vesperia, star ocean, magna carta, etc, i think this gen JRPG games were strong, we did have a lot of great games, i dont think they need to explode, they alredy did this gen.

p.s right now iam having a blast with persona 4 golden on vita an paper mario sticker star on the 3ds, talking about great RPGS

I’m very much looking forward to this game in just 2 days now.
I love the JRPG genre in general and Final Fantasy, but it feels like the Final Fantasy developers doesn’t care anymore. They just give out a beautiful game like Final Fantasy XIII, knowning that it removes about ALL freedom players has had in previous games. They are forcing people to go a straight path, which in my opinion is boring as hell. They are simply selling the Final Fantasy name, not the games.

I have actually never played Lost Odessy, but my all time favorite JRPG games are Suikoden I and II. They are simply awesome and unique with their system to recriut 107 Stars of Destiny to get the best ending.

@35 I don’t even consider Folklore a JRPG. It’s an action game (and a very basic one, at that) with some RPG elements. I thought it was a fun enough game while it lasted, though it was incredibly limited in both scope and execution.

@38: You might be right about that, though i don’t share you opinion that it’s fun. I’m at the second world and it’s just tedious and boring. I rather the game would just be walking around talking to people.

We need a detective game in a parallel demon universe!

But Nier’s gameplay is better, isn’t it?

@33 That side quest was pretty sad. The game definitely pulls of some touching moments.

Just got the Confirm that my order has shipped. Hopefully be playing this tomorrow.

@39 No.

It moves at a snail’s pace, and it takes a dozen hours before you get anything even remotely approaching decent abilities. By that point, it’s playing more like a free form version of space invaders and less like an RPG.

Folklore’s gameplay is quantum physics in comparison.

Still, it does have some great story and music. It’s a game that you really, *really* have to be willing to ignore / accept some glaring flaws to enjoy, honestly.

Valkyria Chronicles it is then.

JRPGs are well , as Michael said. As a gamer who primarily uses handhelds, I seldom faced shortages on psp, and now vita has some good ones too.
Japan pubs on whole have lost some of their sheen, but still good jrpgs are coming. VC, VC2, VC3, Crisis Core (psp), P3P, Phantasy Star portable 1 (2 was worse) and so on were great imo.

Final Fantasy used to be the CoD of Japan, with the same screen swirling bs being churned out regularly on a yearly basis.

Now it’s basically the same, but takes SquareEnix four times as long to develop.

i have never been the biggest fan of jrpg´s. i played some of the genres gems and while i sometimes really enjoy them, it´s still not my favourite genre. not a huge rpg fan in genereal. i am just not into the grinding. i really do like rpg´s on handhelds, not so much on home consoles though strangely. that said: ni no kuni has my full attention. i cannot wait to play it later this weeek. i´m on board of the hype train for sure. why? loveley artdesign, just nails it for me. beautiful. such a charming game, turn based but still fresh gameplay, mixed with a grain of pokemon. easy mode for starters…i think this is a true system seller too and a great coup from sony that they grabbed this as an exclusive. made me excited about my ps3 again…and that´s a great timing now with wiiu out and all.

@30 – My only complaint about Nier’s soundtrack, which is absolutely haunting, is that there aren’t enough tracks. You hear the same song way more than you should, even if those songs are some of the best I’ve veer heard in music.

As for the article…first, Dave, it is a crime that you haven’t opened Valkyria Chronicles. It’s probably my second favorite S/JRPG of all time (behind Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne).

Ni no Kuni, I am about 30 hours into, and I am absolutely in love with the game and it pleases me to no end to see it get the amount of love that it deserves. Beautiful graphics, a very fun battle system, a story that has a great sense of wonder about it without being childish, and just stunning orchestrated music. I was hugely surprised when I went to Gamestop to pick it up and saw that they had about 20-25 other pre-order copies of it there. I figured this would be like the Atelier games or something, where I play it and no one else I know has even heard of it. But this, appears to be selling and that’s just great for me.

I hope Tales of Xillia gets the same amount of love when that comes over and we can start on our way back to the PS1 days, where there were so many great JRPG’s that I couldn’t even afford to buy them all (still never played Wild Arms 2 and just got Legend of Dragoon a few months ago).

I can’t stand JRPG’s. The generic & emo character designs, cliché narratives, hideous voiceovers, over-long cut scenes, grinding and save points is enough for me not wanting to play one ever again.

Strangely, I thought someone with the word “Playboy” in his screenname would enjoy grinding by himself.

My favorite JRPGs this generation:

#1 – Xenoblade Chronicles
#2 – Ni No Kuni <- I'm not finished with this game yet, but it has the potential to be in this spot
#3 – Tales of Vesperia
#4 – Valkyria Chronicles
#5 – The Last Story
#6 – Lost Odyssey
#7 – Resonance of Fate
#8 – Radiant Historia
#9 – Eternal Sonata
#10 – Devil Survivor 2

There are a bunch of hidden gem JRPGs that are way better than Final Fantasy XIII. The problem is that most these games listed above are likely to be overshadowed by Western games.

Why do people call JRPGs cliched while Western games are equally as cliched as JRPGs? Western RPG cliche = Take to NPC, go from Point A to Point B while hacking and slashing enemies along the way. Shooter cliche = Go from Point A to point B while shooting enemies along the way (maybe even shooting down enemies with RPGs). See what I'm saying?