/vr/ - Retro Games

Megami Tensei (Famicom)

>>8621681
There are still western fantasy styled JRPGs (Fromsoft) but you have to admit that the medieval style got boring a while ago.

As soon as voice acting became a staple

>>8621681
People who say FF is weeb are generally memebrained dunning-kruger dopes
PC Engine CD is where anime-styled RPGs really got going.

The PS1.

>>8621681
Nothing against Tolkien but orcs and elves are boring as FUCK. Generic anime bullshit is arguably just as bad but even the weakest modern FFs still have fairly unique and interesting settings.

>>8621681
As early as 1989 with Tengan Makio for the CD-ROM2, the game is heavy on anime tropes, like having a hot blooded MC or having tons of humor and fan service, obviously inspired by anime and manga of the time.

>>8621706
Medieval never gets boring just like Wild West never gets boring.

>>8621706
J fantasy is possibly the only setting more boring than Tolkeinshit. They even turn stuff that should be cool like Wild Arms and Star ocean into generic J fantasy.

>>8621831
Nah I'm okay with no more western fantasy JRPGs. Even Fromsoft can make Sekiro games from now on and Square Enix can kill off Dragon Quest.

Megami Tensei was literally based on a goddamn isekai light novel. Anime RPGs have been around since the 80s.

>>8621681
When Enix hired Akira Toriyama to do the monster designs in Dragon Quest.

Dragon Quest has never changed it's art style, and Final Fantasy alternates between straight fantasy and more outlandish "anime" settings. FFXVI is medieval fantasy again.

>>8621734
The problem isn't Tolkien. The problem is every hack fantasy writer ripping off Tolkien's universe, with only a fraction of the charm or complexity. Never in my life have I thought something like Dragon Age looked appealing. It's clearly Tolkien as interpreted by soulless people.

>>8621681
I feel like JRPG's were always anime and tropey, but the limitations of 8 and 16-bit prevented them from going too far and filling the game up with cringy cutscenes and dialogue.

I'm too old for japirgs. It's hard to give a shit about anime characters when you are twice the age of the target demographic. There's nothing wrong with anime you're just old.

>>8622357
Some of the best anime is about children. It's all in the execution.

This is something that's been on my mind for a long time but is only tangentially related.

Why is Queen's Blade the ONLY Western-inspired fantasy to actually get the aesthetics right? Final Fantasy has tone clashes all over, Dragon Quest is cartoony and silly (and 90% of JRPGs ape it), but of all fucking things, Queen's Blade, an anime that prioritizes fanservice over everything else, manages to get a fantasy aesthetic that isn't drenched in a Japanese misunderstanding of the aesthetic. Other than the waifus fighting, the whole thing really does have kind of an AD&D grognard-y feel to it.

>>8621681
When the west stopped innovating and doing interesting things with RPGs. Sakaguchi to this day makes games with a western appeal, even if it's not the art style. Who focuses on anime tropes? Pretty much everyone younger than that. It's the same way Akira doesn't have big goofy tear drops over characters and a reliance on screaming and covering their face with something gay like a fucking emo.

You can't blame Japan when we've given them nothing to work with in over 30 years.

>>8621681
ummm, basically all fantasy anime is western inspired

you don't see a lot of neets getting isekai'd into medieval japan

>>8622383
>m-muh authentic european simulator
>boob plate and miniskirt with exposed midriff and limbs

>>8622407
>Other than the waifus fighting
Reading comprehension, ESL-kun.

>>8622413
>the character design is pretty authentic as long as you ignore the characters
what did she mean by this

>>8622403
Yes you do and it's always edo or warring states nobonaga era.

>>8622413
Retard

>>8622415
>character design
Read the part where I was praising the character design particularly, ESL-kun.

>>8622424
l2formulate a coherent argument

>time for autists who don't actually watch rpg's or play anime rant about what they think it is again

>>8622436
>watch rpgs and play anime
Sounds like a JRPG fan all right

>>8622397
It's interesting how things that people think are very Japanese are often just a Japanese reinterpretation of something that was Western to begin with. Like how the original mecha shows were inspired by Starship Troopers and Jerry Anderson.

>>8621734
>>8622343

Yeah. if you divorce Tolkien and LOTR from the cultural and theological underpinnings it loses all soul.

Dungeons and Dragons, despite a lot of people having nostalgia for it, is a good example. When Gygax and co were ripping off tolkien and other fantasy writers, it's lore/setting is fucking sleep inducing. When its doing fucking weird shit like writing lore for robots and alien tentacle eyeball monsters in a fantasy setting because some sci-fi toys from the dollar store were all they had to use as miniatures for the game, its at its best and most inspired.

>>8622449
>When its doing fucking weird shit like writing lore for robots and alien tentacle eyeball monsters in a fantasy setting because some sci-fi toys from the dollar store were all they had to use as miniatures for the game

This is where the SOVL is created, my dude.

>>8621681
Dragon Quest (1986). Stupid question. Just look at this design.

>>8622502
Get back here you slippery cunt.

>>8622502
That looks like those enemies from Bomberman.

>>8621681
From day 1. Both Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are distinctively Japanese. Especially if you look at character designs. And needless to talk about stuff like Megami Tensei or Ys

>>8622449
>and theological underpinnings
Stupid bible thumper mad that his games aren't religious enough

>>8621734
Tolkien puts more effort into elves than many fantasy authors put into the entire setting.

>>8622761
>NOOO! SOMEONE SAID THEOLOGICAL! THIS MAKES ME ANGRY
Go and be a "New Atheist" somewhere else. No one's impressed anymore.

>>8622761
Not even. Just have a central theme or be about something that inspires your story, instead of running off a checklist of accepted genre conventions.

>>8622780
Exactly. I have equal appreciation for full blown religious literature, and something completely materialist in it's outlook like Star Trek. The thing is you actually have to make something. You can't just parade around the superficial trappings of a thing, while stripping all of the initial meaning out of it. That isn't anything at that point.

>JRPG
>Japanese Role Playing Game
>Japanese
>western
????

>>8622794
It's anime tiddy game for horny 13 year olds, bro. I don't understand why you'd expect a life changing epiphany.

>>8622887
>It's anime tiddy game for horny 13 year olds, bro.

What game are you talking about? I don't think we've mentioned a specific game.

>>8622887
I expect a vision, as opposed to reheated leftovers that someone took a shit on.

>>8622914

See >>8622780
>>8622449

>>8622917
Ain't gonna find any of that in anime, read proper literature.

>>8622918
I was posting Langrisser just because the topic was japanese fantasy vidya.

also because satoshi's artwork is pretty and everyone should see it whenever possible.

It had no relevance to the topic I was discussing.

>>8622919
Any story can have an arc and a central theme. Even simple adventure stories and short stories. Even Ray Bradbury's short stories which were written for pulp magazines and are usually shorter than a single chapter in an actual book are full of life and passion.

Of course usually the people who tell you not to care about stories and go read a book instead are the types who don't actually read books and prefer to just CONSOOM other forms of media, so my words are probably wasted on a faggot like you.

>>8622919
Plenty of anime has vision, and that's not what we're talking about. Stop seething.

>>8622935
Ultimately, while corporations tend to take over things, most mediums be they animation, books, games, are made by people. And people tend to enjoy telling stories and communicating with others through their stories.

Not all stories are created equal. A 5000 page work of great literature that focuses all its energy on performing an exacting character study of a single man is going to be more piercing than a simple adventure movie, but that doesn't mean the adventure film doesn't also speak to the human condition or something fundamental in the human psyche.

Indeed, in some ways simple stories can be the most profound and universal.

>>8622949
Yes, but simple storytelling with a vision, like say Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, or Conan the Barbarian, is leagues ahead of something that just takes basic motifs from another work like Tolkien, and then calls it a day.

>>8622954
Yeah of course. That's what I was sort of referring to when I mentioned corporations taking over.

You can immediately tell when something was made by a round table of corporate suits with no souls conducting a ritual with focus groups to make money. Things created in this manner tend to just be pastiches of things that are safe and established with no connecting glue.

When a real human being is making something, there's always a faint sparkle of soul there, to some degree. That's why shitty B-Movies can still be entertaining when they're not boring: you can tell a real human being with real aspirations was trying to do something cool.

Of course there's exceptions. Sometimes you get people who are so onions and so out of touch with reality that they've lost the ability to think in terms of anything but tropes. It's a sad thing to see, but I don't think it's all that common in smaller circles of creators.

>>8622983
Did you expected deep philosophy from this Urushihara titty cartoon?

>>8623007
No, though I haven't actually played the fourth game. I just like posting the art whenever discussion of Japanese Fantasy Aesthetics is at hand.

Also

>deep philosophy

Storytelling is not about """""deep philosophy"""". Even the greatest works of literature are not philosophical texts. The purpose of a story is to tell a story, not to preach or argue philosophy (though admittedly, the two might have brief overlap at times). Though of course even the simplest stories often reflect the philosophical views of the author, and philosophical views are like assholes: everyone's got one.

But as I said, people like you who screech whenever somebody just wants to get invested in a narrative are usually the type who've never picked up a work of literature or a book of philosophy. The fact that you don't know the difference between the two is further proof of this.

JRPGs have always been shit. When you put your fucking stupid story first, it's no longer a game.