/vr/ - Retro Games

JRPG connoisseur and 日本語の達人 here, this is an interesting topic because the truth is pretty nuanced and easy to misinterpret. But to put it simply: Yeah, the vast majority of JRPGs have pretty dull/pointless combat.

It all comes down to what Japanese people want from their JRPGs. If you skim Japanese reviews for games you'll see one word pop up so consistently it'll seem like a joke: ストレス, or simply "stress". Japanese people tend to strive for 安心感 in their games, aka a sense of security"/relaxation/etc. When they kind find this security they started getting Stressed. You can view the majority of JRPG game design through the lens of developers trying to avoid stressing Japanese gamers out.

To a western gamer, grinding out EXP seems like a pointless exercise of tedium. But to a Japanese gamer, it's 安心感. It's their sense of security. It's safe. To their moral philosophy, grinding is putting in the work that guarantees them a safe win. This same kind of emotion is also why you see so many crazy Japanese players doing insane challenges in rhythm games and such - when you dig down deep, they believe in the idea that 努力は必ず報われる, "effort will always be rewarded". Their victory is guaranteed, as long as they grind out attempts/etc until they win.

With this in mind, you shouldn't really view most JRPGs through the lens of their combat. It's not there to be fun or challenging, it's there to enhance the story. It's there to work in tandem with the other elements of the game, like giving Warrior Characters a chance to kick ass. It's there to give Summoner classes a chance to do fancy summon cutscenes that have little impact on the fight itself. And so on.

If you want to enjoy JRPGs, I strongly recommend not focusing about the combat. Use speedup, cheats, whatever makes the game more fun for you, and focus on the plot/atmosphere/characters/music/whatever.