/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.5890060]

Is it just me, or do jrpgs suffer from an extreme lack of imagination?

For example, if you look at a western rpg like Baldur's Gate you can come up with rather amusing combat strategies like:

>cast a spell that creates a sticky web on the ground, any one walking over that area will get stuck in the web and unable to move
>cast another spell to polymorph into a spider, which is naturally immune to being webbed
>walk into the webbed area and finish of the enemies, who are stuck and unable to put up much of a fight

I can't think of a single jrpg that allows this sort of approach to gameplay. In jrpgs gameplay seems to primarily revolve around abstract systems, usually some form of rock paper scissors centered on elemental damage. Personally I don't find this design philosophy anywhere near as entertaining or tactically engaging, but maybe I'm in the minority on that.

[Anonymous No.5890065]

But those "rather amusing combat strategies" are boring, you'll use them twice and then stick to melee/fireball/whatever. You're just wasting time trying to figure out artificial fun.
Plus western rpgs are dull because you MISS so fucking often.

[Anonymous No.5890071]

>>5890065
This. WRPGs seem to rely on accuracy whereas generally the variation in JRPGs is how much damage you do, usually based on resistances and elements/statuses. I much prefer the latter. Western games (especially older ones) are way too RNG. They're mostly built on the framework of DND, so they boil down to dice rolls.

[Anonymous No.5890075]

>>5890065
>But those "rather amusing combat strategies" are boring, you'll use them twice and then stick to melee/fireball/whatever.
This isn't a jrpg, status effects in Baldur's Gate are far superior than damaging spells, and they scale better as you level up too. Fireball doesn't guarantee enemies will die, whereas anyone stuck in a Web is almost assuredly defeated.

[Anonymous No.5890080]

>>5890075
Then go play Baldur's Trannies. Problem solved.

[Anonymous No.5890083]

>>5890075
JRPGs commonly have transformation statuses too, and plenty that are situationally beneficial or used for gimmick strategies.

[Anonymous No.5890089]

>>5890080
cuck off
>>5890071>>5890065
>wasting time
>in a vidya
These abstract systems are what makes games fun. Why would you do such go through the motions stuff when fantasy allows for so much variety and freedom. Silly mortals.

[Anonymous No.5890090]

>>5890075
This is also true in DnD.

The level 1 entangle spell is easily far more devastating to your opponents than any equivalent damage spell.
Not really a sign that JRPGs, as a whole, have unimaginative spells.
Nor is it really a sign that Final Fantasy's magic doesn't have creative elements in it just because the most basic Black Magic spells are at the forefront of your mind

[Anonymous No.5890095]

>>5890080
I'm here to discuss JRPG gameplay. Or rather, the absence of thoughtful gameplay.

I can't think of a single jrpg with a fleshed out summon system. 99% of spells in ANY JPRG is "make X number bigger/smaller", or "deal X damage".

[Anonymous No.5890096]

>>5890095
You're not interested in the thing, why menstruate like a bitch. Don't like it, don't play it, cuck.

[Anonymous No.5890101]

>>5890096
if that's your concession that's really sad. I had hoped that someone would lay out a good argument instead of "it's shit so what, go away we actually LIKE shit"

[Anonymous No.5890102]

>>5890060
>posts a thumbnail
>posts a thumbnail from a remake
>expects anyone to take him seriously

[Anonymous No.5890103]

Why are there so many jrpg vs wrpg shitposts? You never see this sort of thing for shmups vs fps vs rail shooters for example. Is it just one guy?

[Anonymous No.5890104]

>>5890101
No, the sad thing is whining about media, toys no less, that do not interest you. Kill self any day, tranny.

[Anonymous No.5890106]

>>5890102
ah, the smell of someone with no argument, it's delicious.

[Anonymous No.5890105]

>>5890104
I wish I was so privileged that something as pathetic as children's toys annoyed me.

[Anonymous No.5890107]

>>5890095
>thoughtful gameplay
Gameplay is meant to be fun, if I wanted to roll dice I'd roll physical dice.
What's next, an deep and tought provoking story?
It's a fucking video game, not Charles Dickens. Let's not be snob with our hobby.

[Anonymous No.5890109]

>>5890106
You shouldn't argue with idiots, they will bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

[Anonymous No.5890115]

>>5890080
>>5890096
BASED

>>5890089
>>5890095
>>5890101
Dilate.

Abilities in a game usually reflect the focus of the gameplay. Walking Simulators probably have a lot of spells that focus around walking, or how your opponent walks, or what your opponents walks at.

A JRPG is not a walking simulator.
Combat happens on a 2D plane with both sides standing in an abstract battlefield. Spells are therefore focused on this instead. Just as you never had to dilate until your sex op, a JRPG doesn't have to set out magical land mines in front of characters to have been a profitable and entertaining genre

[Anonymous No.5890116]

>>5890109
wouldn't deflecting to the choice of OP image be the idiotic thing here? I could have insulted you for uploading that /b/ tier ractionfaec instead, but I'm above that. If you have nothing real to say about the topic, close the tab.

[Anonymous No.5890117]

>>5890115
the abstract field gets boring very quickly. In WRPGs you have line of sight for spells and archers, area abilities with friendly fire and much more, it's more interesting on a tactic level. Don't you agree?

[Anonymous No.5890119]

>>5890116
That wasn't actually me but your thread is so retarded it's actually better if we ignored it to discuss more important things like how shit that IOS port is. Jesus fuck what poor taste, kill yourself.

[Anonymous No.5890121]

>>5890104
>whining
dialate die a late dilate

[Anonymous No.5890123]

>>5890117
It just makes it more tedious to me.

[Anonymous No.5890127]

>>5890117
What's a jarperger that used the cone of sight spells thing?
Chrono Trigger? Grandia? I'm sure Star Ocean too.

[Anonymous No.5890128]

>>5890115
handwave everything outside your realm of experience

[Anonymous No.5890130]

>>5890127
I know what you're gonna say though, Trigger drops the aoe positioning very soon once you get access to spells which hit anywhere on the screen and later full screen even. And Grandia 1 is a piss easy unbalanced game that really needed a bit of difficulty increase, at least they improved it with Grandia 2.

[Anonymous No.5890132]

>>5890127
CT or Grandia have neither line of sight, friendly fire or battles that are influenced by terrain like WRPGs do. From what I've seen of SO1, that one doesn't either.

[Anonymous No.5890134]

Let's just ignore the shitposts and talk about combat combos in jrpgs, okay?

I looked up a list of spells from the game in the OP. Here are some ideas:
- Cast float on your team then use earthquake to deal massive damage
- Equip fire absorbing gear then use meltdown to both damage enemies and heal (or same thing with the water spell)
- Use berserk (or imp?) on enemies then cast vanish on yourself to protect against physical attacks
- Cast vanish one enemies to make sure your spells hit, I remember this works with doom and x-zone
- Cast reflect on yourself then cast magic on your team members to get around the opponent's reflect
But of course this isn't much because there are also various character specific combat commands, espers, and key items that would allow for more combos when combined. FFVI also happens to be infamous for its bland gameplay among other jrpgs so it's far from the best example.

Also it's important to note that jrpg isn't a genre and it encompasses a lot of different things, so in many cases complex combat mechanics are undesirable due to a different focus.

[Anonymous No.5890137]

>>5890132
Lucca's flamethrower hits a line in front of her.
I know what you mean, tranny. I agree with you, jarpigs are worthless shit.

[Anonymous No.5890138]

>>5890134
>let's compare useless inefficient trash in Final Fantasy
Why bother just find the accessory/job/character with X Attack and equip dual legendary swords you found from quests.

[Anonymous No.5890139]

>>5890117
Maybe you should play something more your speed, like Animal Crossing, that way you won't be bored without the cute puppy in front of you. I know its hard to follow all those big numbers and different abilities when you're on painkillers and HRT and don't have a properly functioning penal gland.

>>5890128
Learn to write a sentence.

[Anonymous No.5890140]

>>5890123
you find it tedious because you're young, but RPG veterans see through the flimsy JRPG facade. It's a genre failing to do justice to the most basic RPG features like thievery.

[Anonymous No.5890142]

>>5890089
I didn't ever mention "wasting time". I just prefer my damage dealt to be a result of strategy instead of dice rolls. They work well in tabletop, but not a videogame. I like games that have tons of different statuses/elements/resistances, things like blunt and pierce damage, and different builds to accomodate them. Damage calculations should be static but a result of a wide variety of things, instead of being 8-11 damage with 70% accuracy or whatever. Final Fantasy Tactics does it right.

[Anonymous No.5890147]

>>5890139
I heard Barbie 12 Dancing Princess had a mad competitive speedrun scene, bro.

[Anonymous No.5890148]

>>5890127
Legend of Heroes does (trails in the sky). Not retro but still over 15 years old. It has AOE patterns for spells and abilities, movement ranges, way more than standard side-by-side attacks.

[Anonymous No.5890150]

>>5890140
Then don't play them. Do you really want a challenge, speedrun Tales of Symphonia Mania mode. Nobody that I know has done it.

[Anonymous No.5890157]

>>5890140
It has nothing to do with age, and I maybe completed more rpg than you, not that it proves anything.
Western rpg are usually boring to me because they feature slow gameplay and a lot of verbose.
I'd rather play Lunar than Baldur's Gate.

[Anonymous No.5890158]

>>5890147
There's a precure game on DS? Looks cool, what's it like?

>>5890140
That's like saying half life is bad because you shoot monsters as gameplay instead of doing theoretical physics. Are you just triggered by the fact that japs misuse the term "RPG"?

[Anonymous No.5890161]

I still don't get how OP thinks those are clever uses for spells. Those are the intentional use of those spells. Its like OP is excited he found out the square peg goes in the square hole

>>5890134
these are easily way more interesting and clever than anything any WRPG has done

[Anonymous No.5890162]

>>5890065
>artificial fun

[Anonymous No.5890168]

>>5890134
these shouldnt count because they sound so made up and abstract and unrealistic

like what the hell is a fire absorb? made up jarpig fantasy shit, there's no basis for that in real world and tacticalizing and can't compare to the excitement that is distance

[Anonymous No.5890169]

>>5890103
It's legitimately one very angry guy yeah. He shitposts all over /v/ as well.
>>5890138
>If a game has a "best option" that means it doesn't have other options
Not sure why you're claiming WRPGs have choice then. You can minmax in any game you must realize.

[Anonymous No.5890170]

>>5890168
There's literally a DnD spell called "Absorb Element" dumbass.

[Anonymous No.5890179]

>>5890168
Ah yes, much unlike the rigorous realism of casting "turn into a spider."

[Anonymous No.5890180]

>>5890169
>>5890103
>>5890140
Oh here's my proof. It's one very angry autist who spends literally all day every day arguing on 4chan instead of playing his beloved WRPGs. Keep in mind this is just one of several infographs he spams daily. He also got caught lying about playing through FF6 (he didn't know Terra was an Esper for example) and has a specific autismal rage for Persona 5.
http://xusooot34wmwpyvdonionws/v/search/image/OMagFlz93Y4R11R9AfFUgg/
(add a period before and after onion)

[Anonymous No.5890182]

>>5890060
JRPGs are mindless and WRPGs are ugly and mindless.

[Anonymous No.5890194]

>>5890142
Final Fantasy Tactics is such a bad game.
Despite the terrible, shitty interface design that's overly convolution, in combat you still can't do half the things present in main stream games like heroes, such as creating artificial barriers to influence unit pathing.

[Anonymous No.5890201]

>>5890194
Selecting which attack you want and then selecting an enemy to attack is too complicated for westards.

[Anonymous No.5890204]

>>5890180
/v/ hates him because he is right

[Anonymous No.5890205]

>>5890060
OP, I think you're better candidate for tactical RPGs like FFT or Tactics ogre, which do allow exactly for the stuff you're describing and then some.

If however, you really want to play a classic JRPG with a few more twists to it, why not trying Golden Sun? A big component of it is assigning different djinni combinations to party members in order to produce different spells and skills that can help you overcome certain enemies more easily. The game also makes extensive use of obstacles courses and puzzles that once again are usually to be solved thru modified combinations of djinni skills.

Alternatively, there's also Chrono Trigger whose interchanging party system combined with dual and triple tech skills means there's never an absolute winning combination.

[Anonymous No.5890207]

>>5890204
>Both games are turn-based RPGs where you recruit an army from around a 100 or so characters to overthrow a dictatorial regime
>Suikoden 2 plays like a bogstandard jrpg with a superficial army mini-game

Meanwhile Jagged Alliance 2 lets you actually wage guerrila warfare. You have to manage a mercenary company and hire mercenaries, train militia, liberate towns, sabotage enemy structures, overtake surface-to-air-missile sites so they don't shoot down your helicopter, take over mines and use them as a source of income for your war activities. Like in real warfare, morale is a concern, and party members can demand higher salaries or even leave you depending on your actions. True to the nature of guerrila warfare, you can set up sneak attacks and ambushes. Sound plays an integral role, everything you do produces noise. There are four different movement modes (running, walking, crouching, or going prone) that asks you to make a trade-off between how much sound you make, how fast you move and how much stamina and action points it takes. Besides line of sight and sound, stealth also takes into account the level of illumination. Since the game is open world, not only can you choose when to engage enemies, during day or night, with obvious consequences (nighttime makes it harder for the enemy to see you, but also makes it harder for you to see them), but enemies will also adjust their tactics and AI behaviour, such as throwing out flares during the night to light up the surroundings. Naturally, to be succesful at stealth requires the use of silent weapons such as (throwing) knives.

[Anonymous No.5890208]

>>5890060
so some nigger decides he needs to play olf FF games so he doesnt look like a poser when he bitches about the FF7 remake but doesnt understand that nobody cares about his opinion

welcome to /vr/ nigger im sure you wont be coming here often

[Anonymous No.5890210]

>>5890207
I guess the solution is to play Jagged Aliance 2 then. Nice thing we've had this conversation.

[Anonymous No.5890212]

>>5890204
Anon, nobody hates you we only feel pity for you
http://xusooot34wmwpyvdonionws/v/search/image/AfxqgSLR6hXB4kzKAWhfAg/
(Add period before and after onion)
You're a hollow shell of a person whose only joy is arguing with people he'll never meet.

[Anonymous No.5890220]

>>5890080
>>5890104
>>5890137
>>5890115
>BASED
>Dilate
>Tranny

[Anonymous No.5890225]

>>5890060
They're both for babies. Man up and play roguelikes or stop posing like you play complex RPGs.

[Anonymous No.5890226]

>>5890210
Better yet play Wizard Fire - Dark Seal 2. It's better than both rpg genres.

[Anonymous No.5890237]

>>5890226
The JRPG virgin vs the WRPG virgin in denial vs the arcade chad

[Anonymous No.5890240]

>>5890237
>>5890225
Why are you acting elitist about toys?

[Anonymous No.5890245]

>>5890240
How else am I gonna justify those poor life decisions.

[Anonymous No.5890246]

>>5890220>>5890237
chiptunes are the superior versions of muse sex

[Anonymous No.5890247]

>>5890240
Elitism about toys is the thread's topic.

[Anonymous No.5890248]

I appreciate what WRPGs try to do, but it really seems like a... um... I don't know an English phrase for this, but we have a saying that translates as "dry soup" implying someone set out to make a soup and added too many things to it so the broth is basically nonexistant at this point making the whole thing impractical to eat as soup. If you don't understand what I mean, add a cup of broth to a bowl then add a kilo of chopped vegetables. That. It basically means "motherfucker was trying too hard."
That's what WRPGs are. They're dry soup.
JRPGs have the opposite problem: they lack substance to their gameplay. Using the soup analogy again, a JRPG is like a bowl of broth with a few herbs in it and maybe a dumpling. That's it. Might be satisfying for some, but others might prefer something a little more substantial than a bowl of hot, flavoured water.
Why can't RPGs be a stew? You know: like a halfway point between the two design philosophies? Are there any such games?

[Anonymous No.5890250]

>>5890246
Videogame music sound like childish Beep boops you'd hear at a chink cassino.

[Anonymous No.5890251]

>>5890248
which language is that saying from?

[Anonymous No.5890313]

So you redditors aren't happy with posting this trash on /v/ and now have to shit up /vr/ too?

[Anonymous No.5890358]

>>5890134
this is all good, except ...
most [mainstream] jrpgs that I tried never let you play the goddamn thing.
You are always stuck in a loop of uncontrollable dialog, cut-scenes, walking empty locations to trigger more cut-scenes, minigames and so on and so forth. And when you actually get to see some combat it's mostly piss-easy "press attack to win" random encounters which just irritate you with loading time [even if it's just 3 seconds]. only the bosses ever feel like any threat at all.

[Anonymous No.5890363]

>>5890158
>That's like saying half life is bad because you shoot monsters as gameplay instead of doing theoretical physics.

I think you are missing his point.
in cRPGs different 'jobs' [as in classes or builds] give you actual gameplay variety. In jRPGs they just give a you twist on attack/magic command which has almost no effect on gameplay and usually just triggers another animation. I'm not arguing that it's universally true (although it is noticeable at least for the titles that I tried), just trying to elaborate the post you are replying to.

A better metaphor would be "it's like criticizing %insert fps title here% because all guns are just versions of a machinegun and so there is no variety in gameplay when using different weapons"

[Anonymous No.5890372]

>Tfw you grew up on lots of Western stuff like LOTR, DND and 40K and as a result can't see the appeal in Jrpgs because they're too shallow and inauthentic

Can anyone else relate to this feel?

[Anonymous No.5890385]

>Play JRPG #1021
>"dungeon" is just a load of flat texture oblongs stitched together
Japs have no creativity

[Anonymous No.5890391]

>LINEAR BAD
how to spot an NPC

[Anonymous No.5890405]

A lot of wrpgs have a "quantity > quality" problem I've noticed. There's a lot of good ideas there, but they are never fully utilized.

[Anonymous No.5890406]

>>5890180
but terra isnt an esper, she's a half-esper

[Anonymous No.5890425]

>>5890358
It sounds like you should look a bit harder rather than picking games at random. JRPG isn't even a genre, but it sounds like you've been playing some games within that categorization which aim to have the player experience an adventure. Combat is just one of many components so of course there's lots of other things in between. Random encounters are a red flag for me since they mainly exist as a way for developers to stuff a game with filler without taking the effort to plan each fight individually. But if you want a combat focused game with random encounters, there are plenty of combat focused murderhobo simulators under the jrpg umbrella. So just look a bit harder and find the games you want to play instead of complaining that the games you choose to play aren't the ones you want.

[Anonymous No.5890459]

>>5890363
No, you're missing the point. In final fantasy the protagonist happens to be a thief just like the protagonist of half life happens to be a scientist. You wouldn't expect a thief or a scientist (or other jobs) to play any differently in half life. This complaint only happens because japs happen to call final fantasy a "RPG".
Here's a better example: japs use the word 'hamburger' when referring to salisbury steak. Does it make sense to criticize japanese 'hamburgers' for not having a bun, or should you judge it based on its own merits?

[Anonymous No.5890475]

>>5890248
>Are there any such games?
SaGa

[Anonymous No.5890539]

>Artificial fun
Ok /vr/

[Anonymous No.5890541]

>>5890475
Please don't redirect reddit shitposters to other threads in there, it's enough that they made /v/ unbrowsable, we don't need them to make this board worse than it already is.

[Anonymous No.5890546]

>>5890075
Burn web with fireball

[Anonymous No.5890559]

>>5890459
> muh no you
I'm bretty sure I got the point of the image comparing thief/thief, summoner/summoner correctly.
I mean it does specifically compare the effect on gameplay variety.
If you didn't get it with detailed explanation, I don't think I will bother to put much effort further, not a personal attack, just elaborating why I'm not going to reply anymore.

[Anonymous No.5890564]

>>5890204
I'm not seeing it. It's just so bland. Stick to embarrassing yourself on /v/.

[Anonymous No.5890575]

>>5890425
>muh Russell's teapot
so... you are just going to ask me to "look harder" but can't point out any specific examples?
If not, I'm going to count it as "no arguments, the post"

PS
jRPG is very much a genre in the same sense as cRPG/wRPG is.
inb4 muh geographical sense. Yeah, it doesn't work like that. That's the same as saying that late XIX century French impressionism is not a genre and is only defined by geography. Even though not all works(games) share the *exact same* list of properties, separating it from other genres, a list of common properties specific for this genre can be made.

[Anonymous No.5890743]

>>5890194
This image is funny because you can replace Heroes IV with Fallout and both it and FFT would place basically the same. The only exception is that you don't need to choose the "move" command, but everything from 2 and 6 is the same.

[Anonymous No.5890758]

>>5890205
>Golden Sun
not even once
not even as a joke

[Anonymous No.5890763]

>>5890060
Your problem is that you're playing Final Fantasy. Try playing Etrian Odyssey or Atelier.

[Anonymous No.5890779]

>>5890248
>but we have a saying that translates as "dry soup" implying someone set out to make a soup and added too many things to it so the broth is basically nonexistant at this point making the whole thing impractical to eat as soup.
The English word for this would be "bloated", which normally means inflated, but in this case it means that it has far too much content but the content itself is very shallow to where it's detrimental to the product. WRPGs like Elder Scrolls indeed have this as a major problem.

[Anonymous No.5890818]

>>5890763
This, there's a good amount of modern JRPGs with more systems and depth compared to stuff from the 80's and 90's, I guess this board is too stuck on the past to even think about that.

[Anonymous No.5890925]

>>5890095
>My subjective complaints are definitely objective therefore I deserve argument

what are you talking about you fucking tool

[Anonymous No.5892534]

>>5890060
>WRPG: "Hey, let's try and capture the complexity of tangible consequence from player choice and customization unique to TRPGs."
>JRPG: "Hey, let's do Wizardry for Babies but grindier."

[Anonymous No.5894521]

>>5890090
>The level 1 entangle spell is easily far more devastating to your opponents than any equivalent damage spell.
If it works, and it won't take long before it will fail more often than succeed, allowing enemies to get close and turning combat into a very boring click on enemy to watch your guy attack on his own scenario.

Your examples seem to be based on a few early game encounters. By BG2, for instance, battles are a boring game of dispelling, then dispelling countermeasures then dully hacking away at melee range (if you can get your idiot characters to correctly pathfind their way to the enemy) because there's no time to get one of the potentially fun spells off anymore.

Honestly Baldur's Gate combat is some of the absolute worst in existence. You read the spell descriptions and imagine unparralelled tactical depth, but in practice it's all useless most of the time and ends up far less engaging than simple JRPG combat.

[Anonymous No.5894554]

>>5890060
>can kill enemies with a chainsaw
>can kill enemies with an anchor drop
>can kill enemies with fucking dice
>can kill enemies by manipulating other enemies
>learn the enemies's abilities and use them back on them to kill them
>kill a fucking undead train with a German suplex while running away from it accompanied by you ninja and samurai party members
Give me FFVI over any wrpg anytime.

[Anonymous No.5894559]

>>5890168
FF lifted that directly from DnD you retard.

[Anonymous No.5894569]

JRPGs are for honest brainlets and WRPGs are for brainlets in denial.

[Anonymous No.5894672]

>>5894521
oh for sure it's positively banal compared to basically any SaGa game, but if a person wants real tacticool they usually play roguelikes

[Anonymous No.5894691]

>>5894569
>tfw I play roguelikes, wrpgs, hack n' slashes, and JRPGs, while being an accomplished X-Com player at the same time.

Am I Jesus?

[Anonymous No.5895015]

Why even compare the 2 scenes to begin with? Like I played more jrpgs then (vr) wrpgs but in the end i guess both have some great games and some stinkers. Its not like I have to decide which genre to play for the rest of my life, if a game is good ill play it, jrpg or wrpg, if not i wont.

[Anonymous No.5896964]

>>5890372
lotr is a jrpg set in a western fantasy setting though

[Anonymous No.5897029]

>>5890065
>Artificial Fun
JESUS

[Anonymous No.5897043]

Baldur's Gate is not your average RPG at all. It has many times the strategic depth and gamepplay options of nearly any other RPG.

[Anonymous No.5897051]

>>5890060

Let me dunk on your noob ass real quick;

Final Fantasy 5 has a time-magic spell that reverts the battle to the beginning, including all items used, mana spent, dead characters, boss HP, etc.

[Anonymous No.5897129]

>>5890103
Old rpgs have the highest amount of schizos in their fanbase.

[Anonymous No.5897142]

>>5890060
Play something other then final fantasy

[Anonymous No.5897556]

>>5890060
JRPGs are intented for children so the mechancis are simpler.

[Anonymous No.5897692]

>>5890134
Yeah, FFVI actually has a lot of fun combos you can do.
>FFVI also happens to be infamous for its bland gameplay among other jrpgs
I don't think it's infamous for that, or at least I haven't seen people saying it. Granted the game is easy like most JRPGs and you don't ever really need to use options like this, but I'd say most old JRPGs give you less to play around with than FFVI and other FF games.

[Anonymous No.5897695]

>>5890575
Try the SaGa series.

[Anonymous No.5897701]

>>5890060
It's because /m/ is dead.

[Anonymous No.5897775]

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.

[Anonymous No.5897796]

>>5897775
I hit the character limit, but as an addendum, I naturally had to speak in broad strokes to cover a subject as large as JRPGs. Naturally there are exceptions. It's not /vr/ but the game Labyrinth of Touhou manages to execute a turn-based battle system extremely well for instance, such that boss fights are very intense and tactical. But in general, you will find the most success if you approach JRPGs with the mindset that the gameplay will be grindy, tedious, or otherwise a waste of time. Focus on the good aspects of JRPGs and you can have a lot of fun with the genre, especially when digging into the deeper Japanese scene.

[Anonymous No.5897801]

>>5897775
I like some JRPGs, but if this is as you say, I find this a terrible design philosophy. What you're saying is that in essence, JRPGs are Visual Novels that peruse of combat and quests to pace plot progression. I find this quite aggravating, since the sense of loss and victory, achieved both through winning or retrying a hard fight or having to find a solution to a particular puzzle, are very important factors to immersion by giving a greater sense of reward and purpose.

Furthermore, because I do not read japanese, could you kindly provide further details or articles in English about this thesis that you are pushing?

[Anonymous No.5897831]

>>5897801
>JRPGs are Visual Novels that peruse of combat and quests to pace plot progression
Indeed, and in fact there is no small number of JRPGs out there that style themselves more clearly as visual novels, forgoing combat entirely and using JRPG systems to tell a direct story. In fact there's a name for these kinds of games - 見るゲー, or "looking games" (since you just look at/watch them).

In my experience, the really really good JRPGs out there manage to use their combat to capture that "sense of loss/victory". You can also artificially induce this feeling by doing challenge runs, such as no-grinding runs or no-consumable runs or so on. But in general I think this is merely incidental and not strictly an intended part of the design, that is, the games tend to be designed with the expectation of grinding. In fact it's common for JRPGs to have enormous difficulty spikes right at the final boss which are hard stat checks that require grinding if you haven't been grinding up until that point, which often feels like the developers never expected the players to have not been grinding. Out of most JRPGs I've played, it is common for me to finish them without game overing outside of the final boss, so it is hard for me to imagine that the developers expect their players to go through grand struggles.

I do not believe there are any articles in English about the subject I'm covering. You will be hard pressed to find a single reference to the word 見るゲー in English websites anywhere for example (romanized as "miruge"). I don't think there are many JRPG fans out there who both know Japanese and make it a point to play through so many JRPGs/read Japanese reviews/etc. (Of course, this doesn't mean I'm right or anything, I'm just a dude on 4chan typing out my thoughts).

[Anonymous No.5897858]

>>5897695
try fucking yourself with a waterhose
there are 10 games in this series.
I asked for a specific example. This implies 1, maybe 2 but most certainly <= 3 suggestions.

[Anonymous No.5897878]

>>5897831
Fair enough, so where do games like FFTA and Tactics Ogre land in that equation then? While grinding is also necessary in tactical JRPGs, these are clearly combat-focused games, where every battle carries Game Over risk or the loss of valued (generic) party members, lest you save scum. Yet grinding can also be very much a necessity in these games, so are these just meant to be painstakingly slow as part of the experience?

[Anonymous No.5897885]

The entire thread starts off with the faulty premise that Baldur's Gate enemies and combat is somehow difficult, unlike JRPG combat which is easy.

For a counter-example most SMT games have a rather involving combat, while BG/Icewind Dale to me had tedious and repetitive combat which was extremely easy to cheese, even unintentionally. The strong point of those games was always character creation.
Same thing goes for, let's say P:T, which is one of the prime examples of western RPGs and the combat in that is borderline idiotic.
Same goes for Ultima games and so on...

[Anonymous No.5897889]

Holy shit the anti jrpg redditor is here.
Are you still butthurt about /v/ exposing you?

[Anonymous No.5897896]

>>5890385
>>5892534
>>5890207
>>5890194
>>5890204
>>5897556
hi beepzorz

[Anonymous No.5897927]

>>5897878
Funnily enough, the more popular SRPGs in Japan are those like Disgaea where grinding is a focus. Fire Emblem has been gaining popularity as the game design shifts from hardcore permadeath to casual mode with grinding maps. So yeah, as far as I know, the SRPGs favored by Japan given grinding as an option and being slow is totally fine.

[Anonymous No.5897983]

>>5890060
I think most RPGs tend to suffer from a lack of combat variety, W or J. That's not to say there aren't some that have some interesting parts, but eventually it all starts to boil down to repeat actions for every encounter that become tedious.

Even something like SMT's future press-turn system can be broken down into standard actions to maximize the player's effectiveness every fight, meaning that once you figure out how to abuse weaknesses properly for every enemy, it's nothing but smooth sailing. WRPGs like Baldur's Gate suffer from min-maxing being so powerful as to negate combat encounters just by virtue of having such high stats (AC, Hit modifier, Damage Bonuses) that even a warrior just plows through things like some sort of demi-god who stands toe to toe with greater demons and whatever else have you. That's not even getting in to the side where mages have such powerful spells that they outright kill a lot of targets with a single cast.

That being said, RPGs do have something interesting on both sides despite the lack of intricate combat, and that's the overall "metagame" of combat itself. This is particularly noticeable in older titles; instead of individual encounters being difficult on their own, the game becomes about managing limited resources to reach the end of dungeons and see yourself safely back out with whatever prize you came in for, and getting back to town without dying. The encounters themselves usually aren't so difficult (Well, some can wipe your party if you handle them poorly or get ambushed, but most only serve to weaken you), but you're losing health and magic points per fight, and by the time you get to a boss much weaker than modern games at the end, you might be running on empty, a dead party member, 80% of your magic spent, and you're out of heal potions.

That sort of thing is what makes both types of RPGs interesting to play through. Modern games miss that, instead basically allowing you to enter every boss at full.

[Anonymous No.5897985]

>>5897775
>To a western gamer, grinding out EXP seems like a pointless exercise of tedium.
Western gamers love mindless grinding. Diablo and World of Xeen still have lots of fans to this day. Every modern, major western game has shoehorned RPG elements and grinding.

[Anonymous No.5897987]

>>5897983
>That being said, RPGs do have something interesting on both sides despite the lack of intricate combat, and that's the overall "metagame" of combat itself. This is particularly noticeable in older titles; instead of individual encounters being difficult on their own, the game becomes about managing limited resources to reach the end of dungeons and see yourself safely back out with whatever prize you came in for, and getting back to town without dying. The encounters themselves usually aren't so difficult (Well, some can wipe your party if you handle them poorly or get ambushed, but most only serve to weaken you), but you're losing health and magic points per fight, and by the time you get to a boss much weaker than modern games at the end, you might be running on empty, a dead party member, 80% of your magic spent, and you're out of heal potions.
Yeah, this is something really important that almost no modern games take advantage of. You see a bit of it in roguelikes and arcade games, but that's it.

[Anonymous No.5897996]

>>5890248
the english word for it is subway sandwich
add any ingredient but it always end up tasting like whatever sauce you chose kek

[Anonymous No.5898003]

>>5897987
Thankfully, we're on a board dedicated to retro game, and a lot of them still have that sort of gameplay intact. At least until the SNES dropped for consoles, it lasted a bit longer for PC games.

But yeah, modern games became a lot easier in that regard because it was far less popular to back yourself into a corner and lose a lot of progress after spending an hour crawling through a dungeon. As time progressed, save points became more common within dungeons, along with the ability to use HP/MP restoring items originally only usable in the field. Hell, by the time FFX rolled around, even touching a save point fully restored your HP/MP, and one was right before every major boss. Even WRPGs are guilty of this to some extent, providing rest points before major encounters and quick saving in general means you can retry and savescum a fight as much you want until you win.

There's a few modern games that don't follow this trend, but most are Wizardry clones. There's not too many otherwise that handle combat any differently, though occasionally you do find some really off the wall combat implementations...

[Anonymous No.5898005]

>>5890130
>Grandia 1 is a piss easy unbalanced game
>>5890130
I played it making no special effort to level up or avoid leveling up. I just barely beat the final boss on the first try after using literally all healing items I had (I wasn't expecting a third phase, but it still would have been close even if I knew about it). This suggests that it's perfectly balanced. I can't remember any other JRPG where the final boss wasn't either trivial (most of them) or almost impossible without degenerate strategies (Star Ocean 2).

[Anonymous No.5898025]

>jap games
>shit

well, yeah.

[Anonymous No.5898089]

>the westcuck still at it.

[Anonymous No.5898169]

>>5890180
Even if it's not the same poster it's the same stale bait that's been posted for years
that OP is old ass pasta

[Anonymous No.5898209]

>>5894569
>EVERYONE'S DUMB BUT ME
Fuck off fag

[Anonymous No.5898750]

>>5897996
You aren’t wrong about that
That could catch on

[Anonymous No.5899420]

>>5890102
>remake
A port isn’t a remake

[Anonymous No.5899423]

[Anonymous No.5899447]

>>5897985
loot =/= exp