Best JRPGs

[buru5]

THERE IS NO JRPG THAT WOULDN'T BE A BETTER GAME BY FOLLOWING WESTERN CONVENTIONS AND STYLE.

I've never seen a more true statement regarding jrpgs, which I used to love when I was younger but almost universal hate now.

 

[laclongquan]

Valkyrie Profiles is awesome and I dont see a Western counterpart.

Ditto Valkyria Chronicles.

Or Legend of Mana

Or Chronos Cross

 

[MRY]

THERE IS NO JRPG THAT WOULDN'T BE A BETTER GAME BY FOLLOWING WESTERN CONVENTIONS AND STYLE.

I've never seen a more true statement regarding jrpgs, which I used to love when I was younger but almost universal hate now.

While I also went through this arc, I disagree with Sigourn's claim.

- It is a little bit like saying, "There is no pizza that wouldn't be a better meal if it were a kebab." I mean, jRPGs and Western RPGs are both RPGs, in the way that pizzas and salads are both meals, but the conventions are so different it's hard for me to me to make much sense of.
I guess you could put a pepperoni, a whole tomato, and a hunk on mozzarella on a skewer and grill it, but it would make a big mess and not really make much of a meal (kebab or otherwise).

- I am not sure what, say, Final Fantasy IV "following Western conventions and style" would be. Would it have an undefined class, gender, and alignment for Cecil (or, say, Cecilia)? Would it add in fetch quests and crafting and battles on a tactical grid? Paperdoll sprites with realistic proportions? Would it reduce the level cap from 99 to, say, 9? Orchestral music in lieu of chiptunes? Etc. There are so few features of FFIV that conform to Western RPGs that I don't really know that the game would be with such changes -- but it probably wouldn't be FFIV.

- Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you could take FFIV's and somehow "Westernize" it, I am not persuaded it would be better. The jRPGs I remember fondly represent a unity of many distinct art forms (I am reluctant to employ such a ridiculous word, but Gesamtkunstwerk might actually be appropriate) -- colorful graphics (often pixel), operatic stories with broadly drawn characters (caricatures, even) and absurd melodrama, short repetitious tunes with very catchy melodies, undemanding gameplay that engages the player through a mix of flash and operant condition, grandiose numbers (9999 damage, inflicted eight times in a single round by a single character!) to match the grandiose themes, etc., etc. The way the characters behave is so ridiculous that it would be hard to countenance in dialogue trees:

1. ...
2. DAMN YOU!
3. I... I... I... can't.

Etc.

- That said, PS:T is in some respects a hybrid of jRPG and Western RPG sensibilities. From jRPGs: long-winded companions with outlandish silhouettes and melodramatic stories; a well-defined PC; ostentatious high-level spells; pure munchkinism in the parties' powers (25 in all stats for TNO!); not infrequent use of in-engine cutscenes; a zoomed-in third-person perspective. From Western RPGs: AD&D ruleset; dialogue trees; plot aimed at teens rather than preteens; lack of sharp differentiation between exploration and combat; fairly strong control over PC's stats and class. Obviously not every jRPG is alike and not every Western RPG is alike, so some of these traits can be found crossing over in other titles, but PS:T is probably the best example. But some could draw from that the lesson that Western RPGs would benefit from jRPG tropes, so who knows?

 

[buru5]

I think the linearity is the biggest factor in my dislike of jrpgs. The fact that you usually have very little control over the characters, the decisions, story and options in regards to playstyle. Of course this doesn't apply to ALL jrpgs but it absolutely applies to NES-SNES era jrpgs. In fact, when jrpgs started to open up more and become less linear it was usually inspired by western games (class systems, open world trend, etc). Not surprising considering jrpgs were directly inspired by western games (specifically Dungeons and Dragons). Dragon Quest was directly inspired by Wizardry and Ultima and is a clear example of a "dumbing down" of the genre when you compare them. Final Fantasy copied that and it was a huge downward spiral from there, clone after clone with minor differences.

For the sake of staying on topic: my favorite jrpg is probably Final Fantasy V because of the flexibility of the job system (more character control), the near-perfect pacing of the game and the lack of melodramatic walls of text. The fact that it doesn't take itself so seriously is also a plus for me.

 

[Hyperion]

THERE IS NO JRPG THAT WOULDN'T BE A BETTER GAME BY FOLLOWING WESTERN CONVENTIONS AND STYLE.

Except wRPGs have been almost exclusively dogshit for the last 10 years, while the few sources of incline left are generally Japanese. So no, the Japanese ones would not be better by following Western conventions, especially when "conventions" in most of them have almost universally been dogshit writing with hamfisted politics, shitty quest design, shit combat that tries to steal from its Japanese counterpart, fails miserably and quickly becomes bland before you finish the first area (Hello Witcher 3), inconsistent level design, boring itemization (Looking at you D : OS), an entire cast of allies that are just as obnoxiously terrible as the child characters of jRPGs, trashtier encounter design complete with no enemy variations, that leads to combat you completely forget exists because it gets so boring and rote it becomes more a hindrance than an asset (PoE).

And if your game is called Wasteland 2 you just follow the list I made and check each off one by one.

Calling SMT: Nocturne and Persona 3/4 "un-jRPG" is low key hilarious and is sure to lead to some disappointment when you actually see just how Japanese they are. Hell, Nocturne even follows standard anime convention of "it was a dark and stormy night" translates to "And Tokyo was destroyed in an instant." Or its edgy "high school student with DEMONIC powers" protagonist. If anything, the least Japanese of the modern Megaten games are the Raidou Kuzunoha entries with its sleuthing, pseudo-Noir, set-in-1930's-Japan plot. But those are Action RPG's and quite a bit less challenging than the rest. One thing SMT games all have in common is they tend to be very grindy on a blind playthrough if you're aiming to customize your demons at all. Strategy and abusing buffs takes you a long way, but you have to have demons with those spells first. And know they need to be cast, i.e. speed up spam against Matador, the game's first fiend, who is definitely a massive cockblock to any newcomer.

Oh, and saying a class system is strictly Western is a little ridiculous. A class system is based on D&D. Pretty much all RPG's can be traced back to D&D in some way or form as it's the granddaddy of 'em all.

 

[buru5]

Uhhh... DnD is western.

And if you want a true """video""" game example, Ultima 1 has a class system and pre-dates jrpgs.

 

[Hyperion]

...Thanks? D&D was the first RPG entirely. And it had classes. It would be a little unfair to credit "western influence" (Especially with today's wRPGs) for any RPG from any country just by nature of having a class system. Hypothetically speaking, if Japs created D&D. any wRPG with a class system would then be considered as having Japanese influence. It's a stupid concept.

 

[buru5]

...Thanks? D&D was the first RPG entirely. And it had classes. It would be a little unfair to credit "western influence" (Especially with today's wRPGs) for any RPG from any country just by nature of having a class system. Hypothetically speaking, if Japs created D&D. any wRPG with a class system would then be considered as having Japanese influence. It's a stupid concept.

You tell us "class system isn't western influenced" then cite a western influence as if it's not one then you backpedal. What a joke.

Fact of the matter is, jrpgs wouldn't exist without western influence. Which you proved yourself without realizing it. Does that prove that most JRPGs are shit? No. JRPGs prove that JRPGs are shit.

 

[Hyperion]

I don't think you know what backpedaling is. Nor do you understand what I'm talking about at all. Perhaps I should borrow MRY's example of pizza. Just because pizza originated in Italy doesn't necessarily mean EVERY SINGLE pizza ever created is some sort of theft of, or homage to Italian culture, regardless of what Paulie Walnuts thinks. It's been long enough that pizza is just pizza and there are many different ingredients that can be used in making one nowadays.

...Do you grasp it yet?

 

[buru5]

I don't think you know what backpedaling is. Nor do you understand what I'm talking about at all. Perhaps I should borrow MRY's example of pizza. Just because pizza originated in Italy doesn't necessarily mean EVERY SINGLE pizza ever created is some sort of theft of, or homage to Italian culture, regardless of what Paulie Walnuts thinks. It's been long enough that pizza is just pizza and there are many different ingredients that can be used in making one nowadays.

...Do you grasp it yet?

Got it the first time, too bad I never said jrpgs are shit because they stole from Western influences. Was simply pointing out how foolish you looked citing DnD as a counterpoint to "western influence" in jrpgs. Reading comprehension goes a long way.

 

[Hyperion]

 

[aweigh]

ff1

- 6 classes to choose from (4 man party)
- weapon ranges
- great itemization
- front and back rows
- enemy groupings matter
- Vancian spell-casting system taken straight from d&d
- introduction (and usage) of "elite classes" half-way through the game that build upon the basic 6 classes
- good map exploration and usage of different vehicles
- good dungeons with nicely confusing layouts that get progressively harder

oh, and xenogears is an amazing jrpg. if you don't like it, then you don't like jrpgs. i recommend playing a different sub-genre and saving yourself the hassle of having to force yourself to "try out" rpgs you're simply not going to like.

 

[flyingjohn]

ff1

oh, and xenogears is an amazing jrpg. if you don't like it, then you don't like jrpgs. i recommend playing a different sub-genre and saving yourself the hassle of having to force yourself to "try out" rpgs you're simply not going to like.

Ok this i have to ask,what makes it good?
Cause just by story and rushed content of the second disc alone,it fails to be classified as "amazing".
And yes there is game play but the game heavily focuses on the story which is not very good.
And fuck Kato for ruining the chrono series with that abomination known as chrono cross.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The fact that you usually have very little control over the characters, the decisions, story and options in regards to playstyle. Of course this doesn't apply to ALL jrpgs but it absolutely applies to NES-SNES era jrpgs.

Nope, aside from FF1 that was mentioned already, romancing saga games are pretty open as well, both in terms of playstyle/control of characters and freedom to explore the world and skip or seek out extra story elements aside from the main plot.

Also, going to have to side with Hyperion on the DnD =! western influence thing. That'd be like saying giving party members names and personalities (or faces, for that matter) is a japanese influence or that all computer games, period, are a western influence, because they started in the US, despite japan completely eclipsing the industry since then. Cultures and their influence change over time; what japan tended to do 50 years ago is not what japan tends to do now. What japan tends to do NOW is what is currently a japanese influence.

 

[Sigourn]

Lots and lots of comments, awesome! I'll reply as best as I can:

While I also went through this arc, I disagree with Sigourn's claim.

- It is a little bit like saying, "There is no pizza that wouldn't be a better meal if it were a kebab." I mean, jRPGs and Western RPGs are both RPGs, in the way that pizzas and salads are both meals, but the conventions are so different it's hard for me to me to make much sense of.
I guess you could put a pepperoni, a whole tomato, and a hunk on mozzarella on a skewer and grill it, but it would make a big mess and not really make much of a meal (kebab or otherwise).

I understand your analogy, so I'll explain why I disagree with it on principle:

I don't like many videogame genres. I've found RPGs are by far my favorite genre, with only a few others (racing and football) coming close, but these generally fail because the games are poorly done. If I had to draw an analogy that best suits my views, I'd say RPGs are pizzas and JRPGs are turds. Sure, there are some nice looking turds, like Chrono Trigger, but at the end of the day they are all shit. I use this rather harsh comparison because it is true that wRPGs and jRPGs stand as different genres of their own, much like games like Baldur's Gate vs games like Wizardry. But while jRPGs have interesting things going on for them, like the ability to tell a controlled story, they are usually crap. Again, I've played plenty of the games on the Codex's top 10 console RPGs, and only one stood out as having a GREAT story, even to this day. The others would be best experienced as animes or something, because the gameplay is crap and the story isn't particularly great to warrant playing through hours of repetitive combat.

Planescape: Torment being the "best jRPG ever" is sort of a running meme, but it is also a sad truth: western devs made a better jRPG than their japanese contemporaries. Which goes to show jRPGs aren't the pinnacle of storytelling: they just place emphasis on the story, which has no bearing on whether the story is actually good or not.

Except wRPGs have been almost exclusively dogshit for the last 10 years, while the few sources of incline left are generally Japanese.

How so? Please mention these supposed sources of incline.

So no, the Japanese ones would not be better by following Western conventions, especially when "conventions" in most of them have almost universally been dogshit writing with hamfisted politics, shitty quest design, shit combat that tries to steal from its Japanese counterpart, fails miserably and quickly becomes bland before you finish the first area (Hello Witcher 3), inconsistent level design, boring itemization (Looking at you D : OS), an entire cast of allies that are just as obnoxiously terrible as the child characters of jRPGs, trashtier encounter design complete with no enemy variations, that leads to combat you completely forget exists because it gets so boring and rote it becomes more a hindrance than an asset (PoE).

And if your game is called Wasteland 2 you just follow the list I made and check each off one by one.

I've played Wasteland 2, and the combat was far more engaging than that of any jRPG I've ever played. Every other thing you mentioned can either be narrowed down to bad developers or bad implementation of western conventions. That's the thing, though: even the best implementation of jRPG conventions, like Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI, end up with only mediocre RPGs. Well done, but mediocre RPGs nonetheless.

Lastly, when I talk about "Western conventions" I'm not talking about games like Mass Effect: Andromeda or Fallout 4. I'm talking about the classical western RPG. Hence my comparison is "Baldur's Gate, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, Fallout, Gothic" vs "Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, Secret of Mana, EarthBound, Dragon Quest". Likewise, I don't know if japanese RPGs nowadays are anything like the jRPGs of old.

Calling SMT: Nocturne and Persona 3/4 "un-jRPG" is low key hilarious and is sure to lead to some disappointment when you actually see just how Japanese they are.

Japanese =/= JRPG.

Oh, and saying a class system is strictly Western is a little ridiculous. A class system is based on D&D. Pretty much all RPG's can be traced back to D&D in some way or form as it's the granddaddy of 'em all.

How could I forget Final Fantasy IX's class system, where every character is a powerhouse from the get go, and it matters little whether it is Zidane, Vivi or Steiner doing the plowing. In Baldur's Gate, it would be suicide to send Vivi to the front lines, and I certainly wouldn't risk sending Zidane to the frontlines either.

JRPG class system a shit, SHIT.

ff1

- 6 classes to choose from (4 man party)
- weapon ranges
- great itemization
- front and back rows
- enemy groupings matter
- Vancian spell-casting system taken straight from d&d
- introduction (and usage) of "elite classes" half-way through the game that build upon the basic 6 classes
- good map exploration and usage of different vehicles
- good dungeons with nicely confusing layouts that get progressively harder

oh, and xenogears is an amazing jrpg. if you don't like it, then you don't like jrpgs. i recommend playing a different sub-genre and saving yourself the hassle of having to force yourself to "try out" rpgs you're simply not going to like.

Thanks for the FF1 info, it seems more complex than I actually thought. Regarding Xenogears: I thought so. Like I said, I love FFIX and FFVII, but if I was actually forced to play those games right now, I would probably give up pretty early. It's more of a "my child has the Downs but I love him since he is my child".

 

[buru5]

Nope, aside from FF1 that was mentioned already, romancing saga games are pretty open as well, both in terms of playstyle/control of characters and freedom to explore the world and skip or seek out extra story elements aside from the main plot.

Also, going to have to side with Hyperion on the DnD =! western influence thing. That'd be like saying giving party members names and personalities (or faces, for that matter) is a japanese influence or that all computer games, period, are a western influence, because they started in the US, despite japan completely eclipsing the industry since then. Cultures and their influence change over time; what japan tended to do 50 years ago is not what japan tends to do now. What japan tends to do NOW is what is currently a japanese influence.

Yeah no.
FF1 is linear garbage. Yeah it has a "class system" to an extent, but most combinations are unplayable and honestly when you analyze it it's not a class system at all, just different characters with different abilities that progress in a linear jrpg fashion. There's no way to combine fighter and white mage abilities to make a paladin, for example. Yes, there are advanced classes but it's a linear progression. The extent of the open-ness you're referring to is simply "pick who you want to play as" at the begining of the game then follow a very linear level up path. Yes there's an "open" world map but it's still a linear progression from point A to point B with very little optional content in between. I wouldn't say it's the best example. Yeah it's better than Dragon Quest and a lot of Final Fantasy games that came after it but it's still shit. Wizardry and Ultima both offer more options in regards to character building and open-ness with their respective worlds. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest are just simplified variations of those games. The developers even admit it in saying that they wanted to make something like Wizardry but "more casual and less intimidating" for the average Japanese gamer. Look up some interviews with Yuji Horii regarding DQ1, for example.


If you wanted to give an example of a more open jrpg in terms of character customization you would have been better off citing Final Fantasy 2, even though it has its own long list of problems. At least it let every character use any weapon, magic, etc. It gave far more freedom in regards to how you build your party.

Regarding Romancing Saga, I don't know much about it. I've only played SaGa Frontier 2, which I liked a lot for what it was back in the day. Is that part of the Romancing SaGa series?

And one day you weebs are going to have to get over the western influence thing and just admit it. Jrpgs wouldn't exist without western influence, but that's not the reason they're shit. They're shit because they took a genre and made it far more linear and simplified than it needed to be simply because some developers in Japan thought DnD rules were too confusing and wouldn't appeal to a mass audience.

 

[MRY]

I don't like many videogame genres. I've found RPGs are by far my favorite genre, with only a few others (racing and football) coming close, but these generally fail because the games are poorly done. If I had to draw an analogy that best suits my views, I'd say RPGs are pizzas and JRPGs are turds. Sure, there are some nice looking turds, like Chrono Trigger, but at the end of the day they are all shit. I use this rather harsh comparison because it is true that wRPGs and jRPGs stand as different genres of their own, much like games like Baldur's Gate vs games like Wizardry. But while jRPGs have interesting things going on for them, like the ability to tell a controlled story, they are usually crap. Again, I've played plenty of the games on the Codex's top 10 console RPGs, and only one stood out as having a GREAT story, even to this day. The others would be best experienced as animes or something, because the gameplay is crap and the story isn't particularly great to warrant playing through hours of repetitive combat.

Meh. I feel like this is too narrow a view of games, and in some respects too narrow a view of yourself. There's a reason you (and I, and others) enjoyed jRPGs* as 12 year olds. (To be clear, I am not some scholar of the genre. When I talk about jRPGs, I am basically limiting myself to the jRPGs available in English on the NES, SNES, and Genesis consoles from 1986 to 1998, and a few of the Playstation RPGs, which exhaust my knowledge. My sense is that depending on how you slice the genre, it becomes much more diverse -- what I am talking about are the most stereotypical jRPGs, the kind that RPG Maker aims to clone.) Saying "they'd be better as animes" is silly because people obviously enjoy them in addition to animes, and they're very different media.

I don't count myself as smart enough to be able to understand or explain it all, but if I had to hazard, it would be something like this:

- jRPGs are a very low-friction experience, especially once you get past the early NES RPGs. By this I mean, there is almost no effort that goes into basic stuff like: (1) buying and equipping gear; (2) restoring characters' health, magic, and status; (3) advancing characters in power; (4) composing the party; (5) selecting successful battle strategies; (6) navigating the maps; etc. Part of what is "low-friction" here is the lack of stressful choices -- what I would now consider a core aspect of what RPGs are about, though in my view Western RPGs often have some degree of min-maxing-type choices that are ultimately illusory but fairly frictive. But part of the low-friction is that the mechanical aspects of interacting with the game are easy to handle: you aren't playing inventory Tetris or clicking fourteen times to loot a trashcan or whatever.

- Because jRPGs ask relatively little of the player, it is easier for the player to enter into a passive state that makes longwinded plots tolerable, akin to the state when binge watching a TV show or whatever. Thus, jRPGs serve as a good vehicle for longwinded plots.

- At the same time, jRPGs plainly do engage the player sufficiently to trigger an immersive quality that purely passive entertainment doesn't have. "I found the Atma weapon!" vs. "The characters on the TV show found the Atma weapon!" This means that stuff that would be totally extraneous and horrible in a purely passive mode (e.g., the dialogue from townspeople) turns out to trigger some kind of pleasure for players in the semi-engaged jRPG context.

- jRPGs did the Skinner Box / operant conditioning thing before MMOs/F2P games got there, and it's a real thing, but they did it in a way that is (IMO) less exploitative of the player (in particular because they aren't trying to use the player's conditioning to take more of his money).

- They tend to be pretty satisfying to a "completitionist" player -- providing enough hidden content, but ensuring that you can get it all in a thorough play through.

- The overall combination of cartoonish graphics, simplistic melodies, and mindless gameplay is particularly well-suited to a child-like state of mind, whether in actual children or in people straining for some nostalgia or still not fully mature.

I much prefer Western RPGs today (or at least a subset of them), but they don't really do those things the same way, and I don't think they could do them the same way because the very things that make them better -- like hard choices or interactive dialogues or branching narratives -- preclude the semi-passive experience of jRPGs.

Planescape: Torment being the "best jRPG ever" is sort of a running meme, but it is also a sad truth: western devs made a better jRPG than their japanese contemporaries.

PS:T is absolutely not a jRPG. It smartly stole some jRPG elements, but it doesn't play at all like a jRPG. Aside from the things noted above, another I'd note is that there is very little "companion autonomy" in PS:T. For example, the moment when Morte is kidnapped feels really out of place, invasive, and dumb in the game, but it is absolutely standard for jRPGs. That it feels so jarring is in part because the companions in PS:T are essentially passive: mostly they speak when spoken to, mostly they speak only to the PC and not to each other (let alone to characters outside the party), they don't really pursue their own agendas except in very limited instances (Vhailor with Trias), they follow the PC as long as the PC wants to keep them around, and none is plot-necessary. That's not how companions work in jRPGs -- they tend to talk a lot to each other and play active roles in cinematic sequences, they come and go at their own whims (often leaving to pursue their own quests), they often die for plot reasons, they are often compulsory parts of the story. This may be an inferior mode of RPG story-telling, but it's a distinctive one that makes jRPGs really different from even PS:T.

Which goes to show jRPGs aren't the pinnacle of storytelling: they just place emphasis on the story, which has no bearing on whether the story is actually good or not.

I certainly agree with this. As I noted above, jRPGs are basically operatic/soap-operatic cartoons for preadolescents.

To give a slightly different metaphor than the pizza/kebab, I feel like you're sort of saying something like, "(S)NES run-and-gun games would be better if they were FPS games." Generally, I think that FPS games (at least the era I played, original Wolfenstein to Enemy Territory, basically) are "better" than run-and-gun games, and they bear certain superficial similarities (you have an arsenal of guns, you kill enemies, you get powerups, you go through different environments, you can duck and jump, etc.) such that you could put them all in a general "shooting game" family. But Contra has its own kind of charm that doesn't exist in Half-Life. Contra-as-Half-Life would just be a crappier game than Half-Life and a different game than Contra, and the world would be a poorer place with that change. In the same regard, I think Final Fantasy 6 reimagined in the NWN2 engine would be an overall loss: you'd trade a dumb charming game but a dumb uncharming game; the former added something special if basic to the stock of games, the latter would add nothing.

 

[Sigourn]

Meh. I feel like this is too narrow a view of games, and in some respects too narrow a view of yourself. There's a reason you (and I, and others) enjoyed jRPGs* as 12 year olds. Saying "they'd be better as animes" is silly because people obviously enjoy them in addition to animes, and they're very different media

I understand, and I agree. But I feel jRPGs are pretty much like Dragon Ball Z. I used to love them, but when I play them/watch it now, I realize it is a repetitive affair. "Oh no, a new opponent! Now we have to train harder!" and rinse and repeat. Battles that last 10 episodes, awful cringy dialogue, and more.

On the other hand, there are "kid's" movies that I still love today because they are extremely enjoyable, like A Bug's Life and Toy Story (1).

I agree with everything you said afterwards about the jRPG deconstruction. When I talked about "anime", I really meant it on the sense of "anime as a story". Xenogears may have a good plot hiding in there, but all the jRPG related elements ruin it. There are two games which I consider to have amazing stories. Those are:

- Planescape: Torment
- Vagrant Story

And in both cases the combat sort of works towards the story. In Vagrant Story you are thrown into this dangerous enchanted city, so the combat helps feel like you are in a very dangerous place. In PS:T, you can avoid combat for the most part, and it is unavoidable when it makes sense (story-wise) that it should be unavoidable. In plenty of jRPGs there's combat all the fucking time. It's probably got to do with the random encounters. While they make sense in a game like Wizardry, since you are in a dungeon full of monsters and you have no option but to keep on going, it feels weird when you are traversing the plains, and the game leaves you no choice but to think "my characters are really bad at avoiding enemies".

PS:T is absolutely not a jRPG. It smartly stole some jRPG elements, but it doesn't play at all like a jRPG. Aside from the things noted above, another I'd note is that there is very little "companion autonomy" in PS:T. For example, the moment when Morte is kidnapped feels really out of place, invasive, and dumb in the game, but it is absolutely standard for jRPGs. That it feels so jarring is in part because the companions in PS:T are essentially passive: mostly they speak when spoken to, mostly they speak only to the PC and not to each other (let alone to characters outside the party), they don't really pursue their own agendas except in very limited instances (Vhailor with Trias), they follow the PC as long as the PC wants to keep them around, and none is plot-necessary. That's not how companions work in jRPGs -- they tend to talk a lot to each other and play active roles in cinematic sequences, they come and go at their own whims (often leaving to pursue their own quests), they often die for plot reasons, they are often compulsory parts of the story. This may be an inferior mode of RPG story-telling, but it's a distinctive one that makes jRPGs really different from even PS:T.

Good points. I too felt that Morte being kidnapped came really out of nowhere back when I played the game a year ago. Personally when I hear the comparison to jRPGs, I think of it from the story side: a clearly defined protagonist (for the most part), with clearly defined companions each of them with their own story and background.

 

[MRY]

It's too bad I found Vagrant Story's gameplay so impenetrable back in the day; I'm sure I couldn't stand it now. To be honest, the main character's look was pretty ridiculous, too...

 

[Sigourn]

It's too bad I found Vagrant Story's gameplay so impenetrable back in the day; I'm sure I couldn't stand it now. To be honest, the main character's look was pretty ridiculous, too...

Preposterous.

Plus Ashley's so bad-ass in a very un-cringy way that he makes up for his bare ass pretty damn quick.

 

[sullynathan]

From the short time I played all I remember in ff1 was that I was bombarded by random encounters. Got old really fast

 

[Damned Registrations]

Vagrant Story has straight up the worst gameplay of anything with equipment I've ever seen. It's basically Dance Dance Revolution if it only had a single button to press. There is no incentive at all to upgrade equipment, stat gains are meaningless, all that matters is that you keep timing the attacks to get potentially infinite damage and keep timing the defenses to be completely immortal. I'm convinced anyone that thinks it's a good game just has a boner for the faux medival setting.

And just because the internet told you the easiest order to fight bosses in to finish a game doesn't make it linear. FF1 has plenty of ways to route things once you get vehicles, and the party composition makes a huge difference in how the battles and dungeon crawling play out. It certainly feels a lot less linear than something like Baldurs Gate, where you can't travel north of candlekeep until you go into nashkel mines because the invisible plot wall compels you.

FF1 also has fewer random encounters than you realize; many of them are scripted encounters at specific locations, like near treasure chests or just inside rooms.

 

[buru5]

>implying I didn't play FF1 when it first came out in the states on NES

Ff1 being less linear than Baldur's Gate? That's the most hilarious thing I've read all month.

 

[MRY]

Vagrant Story has straight up the worst gameplay of anything with equipment I've ever seen. It's basically Dance Dance Revolution if it only had a single button to press. There is no incentive at all to upgrade equipment, stat gains are meaningless, all that matters is that you keep timing the attacks to get potentially infinite damage and keep timing the defenses to be completely immortal.

Yeah, this fits with my recollection -- chaining an endless string of 1 damage attacks while limiting my enemy to a single 1 damage attack, though surely that can't actually be right and I must be exaggerating things.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You're slightly off; the attacks increase in damage 1 point per chain; so 1,2,3,4,5,6 and so on. And defensively, if you timed well you'd reduce damage taken by half, which meant it was capped at half your current hp because there was no such thing as overkill from enemy attacks.