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Comments
Typically the story and characters are the primary reason to play a JRPG though. I mean most of the time the battle system sure as hell isn't -- certainly not for 40+ hours.
If the battle system of a JRPG was a some kind of intricate game of strategy where you had to carefully manage the enemy's status at any given time it might be another story, but most of the time any enemies you give a damn about are immune to anything but straight damage, bypass or quickly null your own buffs, and it just turns into a slugfest of big numbers.
I mean really, when's the last time you were even able to reliably land a status effect on a boss? I think the last time I saw it happen was Lord of the Rings: the Third Age (most were vulnerable to at least something, and Elegost could scan their immunities), and that game had enough other issues that nobody cared.
Game designers are not tacticians, strategists or martial artists. And that's a pity.
Which is amusing, because the programmers who work for them kind of have to be at least the first two of those to be able to do their job.
I think, for a game programmer who likes their job, the appeal is in the problem-solving process, and the way that problem-solving results in a work of art. The overall design of the game isn't really their concern. Game designers, of course, need to know better, as well as needing to know how to use the skills of their team correctly.
"The overall design of the game isn't really their concern."
That's the thing. It is our concern, but it's not supposed to be. If you're as lucky as I was, your designer is in the same room and is open to suggestions that you can work in quickly, but the larger the project, the more distant they're going to be just because of the sheer scale of the project, how many people they have to be communicating with, and how many larger problems they're going to be dealing with.
Also, most approaches will take some amount of artwork to implement, and being shorthanded there is usually the bottleneck for development quality and how "finished" the game is. Dropping last-minute modifications for them to adapt to is not likely to work well.
One problem that crops up with even trying to use status effects on bosses is that you often have no way of knowing the difference between randomly shrugging it off due to resistance, and complete immunity -- thus, you tend to play it safe and assume the latter because...well, it's usually the case, and even if they have a very slight chance to be affected by it it's functionally the same as total immunity when coming up with a game plan because you'd rather not flush 3/4 of your turns down the drain altogether for a minor payoff.
Something I'd like to see is some kind of verbal feedback for a ballpark estimate of how resistant an enemy is to a certain status. Like, "is completely unfazed" if they're altogether immune, "shrugs it off" if they just resisted it and will tend to do so, and "staggers, but is unaffected" if they have low resistance but just got lucky. Maybe one of your characters can either enemy scan later, or have an Allergy Test attack that can probe a few potential weaknesses at once.
I think status effects would be more effective if people put some thought into implementing them in a way that does not completely null the impact of bosses. The problem with the usual implementation of Poison, for example, is that percentage-based damage pretty much turns the battle into an instant win in about 10 turns or less, so instead, a possible fix would be to make it do damage equivalent to an unboosted regular attack by the opponent who inflicted the status. Stunning can be made so that it can only be used sparingly or under very specific conditions (I'm assuming some form of conditional turn-based system), but if timed right, it can stop a critical attack from executing. Delaying is simple enough, as are any stat-dropping statuses, though to keep things dynamic major bosses would have ways to remove them every so often.
I think what would really help is if all skills had a recharge time to prevent people from spamming them and make them think twice about using them. And statuses are definitely more useful as side effects rather than skills on their own.
alternatively, make it so that the boss isn't just an enemy with more hit points and higher attack power.
I still say that the AP System in Final Fantasy: the 4 Heroes of Light is innovative.
But honestly, I don't really want innovation all that much sometimes. Turn-based RPG games are getting rarer and rarer, and that makes me sad. While I do admire innovation, most of the time I really just want more of what I know that I like.
^^Yeah, but this is about the game mechanics. And that's a given anyway.
^Never been too fond of traditional turn-based system, since inputting commands and hoping the turn order favours you isn't fun. Conditional turn-based is good though.
He's opposed to innovation and expanding the medium! Everyone gang up on him!
In all honesty, it's very nice to see some innovation going on, but I'm not vehemently opposed to some familiar stuff if it's done well enough.
Which is fine and dandy, but the industry as a whole loses customers because there is nothing new. I mean, based purely from a costumer perspective, why would you buy X game when you already have Y, which does the same thing, but with another story and setting? Why not buy Z game, that does something different which you might enjoy and which comes, hopefully that is, with another story and setting as well?.
While I agree with your perspective and tastes, Juan, I have to point out that sequels are generally strong sellers. Repetition doesn't seem to bother most consumers much. Most people who buy games aren't really looking for the next great moment like we might be, but for a way to have fun. For most people, that implies a level of familiarity and comfort a new game, franchise or style has to establish from scratch.
That said, I think what the gaming industry might need right now is some new, high-quality IPs that prove themselves to consumers and encourage them to pick up other games that aren't necessarily well-established in terms of sequels or familiar mechanics. Ideally, I'd like to see series become less famous than the developers, and selling on those merits. If that was the advertising standard, then we'd have a lot more room for new IPs and weird ideas.
Essentially, in this aspect, I want the gaming industry to be more like the film industry or the publishing industry. In fact, in every other art form, it's usually the creators that become the basis of expectation rather than the series from which something comes.
I was thinking about that, and there's nothing wrong per se with sequels and buying a game because it's a sequel to a game you have already played and enjoyed, especially because sequels normally improve on flaws that the previous game had (Which movies normally fail at because movies' flaws tend to be less...improvable through sequels, to use some vague wording)
but the thing is, you can keep buying sequels only for so long. Sure, you can buy all of the MGS games, or all of the Final Fantasy games because you enjoy them, but there's a point where you simply will go, "Why did I buy Resident Evil 5 when 4 is better?" or "Why did I buy FF XIII-2 or whatever when I could have bought myself a castration, which would have had the same effect?" I think even most customers understand that, which is why at some point or another, most sequels that don't innovate or bring something new to the table tend to not sell, if only because of word of mouth and so on.
The problem is that the standards for a something new are far too low, in my opinion.
Well yeah. I certainly agree that in the long run, reusing old IPs is going to wear out the industry and ensure that consumers can find something better to spend their money in. In the current gaming context, however, the samey sequelitis approach is working financial wonders for the publishers, though, and they're the ones that call the shots.
All in all, I'd say that a series has probably run its course in three to five games in most cases. There are exceptions, like Call of Duty and Final Fantasy, but most series tend to wind down in popularity after that, even if new games continue to be made. So there's some inherent consumer desire for diversity.
Given that this thread started as a rejection of the East vs. West mindset, I thought it'd be pertinent to post this. It makes a really strong case for redefining game genres and discusses the splits between WRPGs and JRPGs.
Extra Credits is definitely one of my favorite web shows. Though I may disagree with them at times, I'm still willing to see what they have to say on certain subjects.
"Words words, more words, words and then words."
Gotta to admit that part made me chuckle as I know a few people do that.
But how much of that is actually harming quality? Like, how many bad sequels are being sucessful? And, most importantly, how many bad sequels to bad sequels are succesful? Because it's kinda understandable to buy a sequel to a game you enjoyed only to find it's pretty much shit. It isn't understandable to buy a game of the same IP after that.
I mean, from what I've seen, the really really succesful games are not stuff like Mario Party number whatever, but stuff like Mass Effect 3, which was a sequel to one of the best games of its year and supposedly isn't a bad game in and of itself, either.
>Extra credits
ALLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEX
I think that's really the wrong question to ask. For one thing, a "bad" sequel can be relative; Call of Duty: Black Ops wasn't a bad game by any stretch, but it was disappointing to many compared to the quality of the games in the series thus far. That said, it was successful based on the brand name alone. Mass Effect 2 itself was subject to a lot of criticism (even though I personally think it was better than ME1, but whatever), and I believe Dragon Age 2 sold well, too.
I think what we should be looking at is how well-received mediocre sequels are. To me, that's the major point of contention. We should be looking at which sequels contribute to their series and which ones are riding them for cash. One thing I really like about The Witcher 2, despite the results, is how they changed the combat system. It's unreliable and inconsistent, but it shows a definite movement towards a faster pace and greater sense of urgency than in the previous game. Even though the developers failed to give us a combat system that was solid and user-friendly, they took a risk in trying to provide a different kind of experience and thereby improved the whole tone of the game.
'Cause the thing about that combat system is that, in narrative terms, it was ultimately successful. It altered the kind of tension combat produced and gave a greater sense of freedom and agility to the game. In fact, it reflected the kind of fighting seen in the rendered intro of the first game, so it's obviously the direction they wanted to take. The Witcher 2 is, overall, an excellent game with a mechanically poor combat system -- but for all its failings in that area, it ultimately made a strong contribution to the tone of the game overall.
wut
I feel the need to post one moviebob video but I don't know which one is it where he condemns extremely long posts and and stuff. Just to be contrarian to Alex.
I know I skim a majority of Alex's posts (Especially the ones on swords), doesn't help his tastes are different than mine in a "What he desires from gaming is different than what I desire from gaming" way. It's fine though.
Well, I was trying to emphasize the bad aspect there. As in, a mediocre game, regardless of its predecessors, or at least, a game that didn't innovate on what the others brought (More of the same, in other words)
It's true that Black Ops is not exactly a shitty game, but...well, it's not better or that different from the other CoDs. And it's true that it sold on brand alone, but I wouldn't say there are many franchises that are equal to CoD in terms of success, except for the really old franchises, which I think is a very important distinction to bring up, as many of the old franchises have managed to be succesful because they have kept up with the times, and even innovating and setting the road for future game design.
I mean, sure, people love CoD and it probably will keep selling because people love the shit out of playing it online, even though it's full of boring camping and shit, but whatever, I digress. The point is, how much has CoD brought to the game industry? How many important ideas has it contributed? Because if it keeps going the way it's going, I don't think it's going to keep the success it has enjoyed through all this time, except maybe amongst fratboys.
CoD has been a pretty important game, at least up until Modern Warfare, in terms of contributions to gaming. It was the first mainstream FPS to successfully insert a form of realism that reconciled well with the needs of a video game. It had high damage, high accuracy firearms and a button dedicated to increase accuracy via looking down the sights. The result of this is that initiative in combat is what won the day, so it was all about using tactics that allowed you to take or retain initiative. Before CoD, FPS games tended to have a form of balance that elongated engagements, making tactics a secondary benefit when compared to raw skill.
The important thing about this is that it allowed anyone to pick up the game and succeed. Because guns behaved essentially like one would expect, players based their approach to the game based on the concept that very few shots would take out an adversary. There were no extra rules to learn or fantastic conditions to consider; guns kill, and kill quickly. Everyone knows that, so everyone goes into CoD knowing the fundamental rule to success.
CoD2 took another step with regenerating health. It allowed the developers to make the player character almost as vulnerable as an adversary without making the game impossibly difficult. Now it was about not only retaining initiative, but having defensive measures to allow oneself to recover from an engagement. Running and gunning was foolhardy at best and impossible at the worst, so it enforced tactical considerations whereas the previous game's high health and plethora of medpacks allowed a more arcade-like quality.
CoD is an excellent example of strong, careful and intelligent game design. It contributed something to mainstream gaming that had never really been done to that extent before, despite how games like CounterStrike and Day of Defeat used similar ideas. And it did all this in context of the well-known narrative of WW2 and used that as an emotional backdrop. It's a series with flaws, but some level of genius went into it as well.
I do agree that it's run its course, though. It's made its contribution and has been rehashing for years now. That doesn't negate the impact of the initial games or the quality of their contributions, though. FPS gaming as a whole has been richer for CoD. It invigorated the genre in a way no other game had before or has since. The modern FPS starts and ends with this series -- and perhaps it should end. FPS games might have reached a creative limit and may well need a mainstream rest period while some other genre becomes the darling. Video games have only really just begun to get popularin the mainstream, and the FPS boom only represents one aspect of their popularisation. It'll be interesting to see which genre steps up next, if any.
This video is the start of the WRPG vs. JRPG series: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/western-japanese-rpgs-part-1
> their intent is different
I gotta say, this is what I've been saying all along. WRPGs focus on customization and exploration while JRPGs focus on narrative.
Props, however, for their figuring out why this is the case: It's because the videogame-RPG genre developed independently in the US and in Japan, as opposed to other genres that were developed primarily in one place and then imported by the other. Also for noting that JRPG companies have backgrounds in visual novels (though I don't know how long visual novels have been around and thus am not sure how true this is).
I'm not sure I agree with the Extra Credits video. I agree that WRPGs tend to focus more on the nuances of self-insertion, but JRPGs tend to leave the protagonist silent and with the expressive capacity of a turnip for a reason -- he's still a pair of pants for you to wear. And while there was a time when JRPGs focused on party interaction and coherent story, that was mostly in the SNES/PS1 era. Before that you had system limitations too tight to really pull it off, and these days they've rehashed the same tired, shallow cliches so often it rarely counts anymore -- you can basically look at a character and predict the full extent of their interactions. Compare to like, anything by Bioware, even the less impressive stuff.
A lot of that I guess has to do with JRPGs booming at the same time as the visual novel; at this point they've essentially become an extension of that, which was in turn an extension of anime. But it comes with the same crushing xerox stagnation as the anime industry.
Not to say we're without our own cliches. I mean most WRPGs stem directly from D&D, so yeah.
Bee, I do have to clarify something about Radiata Stories from a page back. The apparent innovation is not getting the plot right, but making each of the 80 or more NPC have a life outside the main character and their interactions with him.
Isn't this seeing the sturgeon's law by the bad side?
I'd argue that even the good ten percent is not exactly known for its intricate and innovative plots.
Of course, that involves using only recent anime, as that is what we're talking about here
^^ I'm aware. And I'm saying that that being the exception rather than the rule at this point in the industry is pretty damn lazy.
I watched the second Extra Credits video after posting about the first one.
First, JRPGs with silent protagonists are a minority among JRPGs, I think.
Second, while I agree that WRPGs have a lot of customizability, they also feature a lot of fantasy-world exploration and discovery, which I think is a side of the coin the EC videos haven't yet gotten into. Because it's not just about making the character your dream character; it's also about letting said dream character explore, interact with, and possibly shape a rich fantasy world. Usually less shaping and more exploring and interacting with (shaping has more to do with sandbox games).
That said, I do agree with them that genres should be defined based on underlying basis and "why people play this" rather than overt format. I actually prefer to call things like FPS and platformer presentation styles, not genres. Incidentally, I feel that the early Zelda games (apart from Zelda II) get lumped in with JRPGs merely because they share a top-down presentation style; the basic gameplay of the Zelda series is exploration and powerups and more exploration--in other words, the metroidvania genre.
Yes, NES and GB JRPGs tended to be pretty simple too, in both story and setting (often just generic Medieval-European-style fantasy). It was only until the later years of the SNES and onward that the full power of dramatic storytelling could be exercised thanks to innovations and improvements in soundtrack, visuals, and script, and that's really when the JRPG genre hit it big.
One odd thing is that, while the videogame industry is having trouble with stagnation from a number of big-name IP franchises with rich legacies and not much innovation taking up space, the animé industry is kind of in an opposite position, featuring a lot of IP turnover and new IPs, with relatively few continuing series. At least, that's the feeling I've gotten second-/third-hand.
The problem in the anime industry is that new IP tends to come in predifined sets, much like the Die Hard on an X meme. That is, many new shows follow the leader in regards to their own genre conventions.