actually I read the whole thing here, and I can say only one thing after all…. The only reason, why I played JRPG like FF, SoM or Grandia, are the storys. It doesn’t matter to me if squenix made a erotic looking ice queen of shiva or named the bad guy in FF VII Sephiroth, the one winged angel. Only names i guess. After all, in FF VIII were Shiva only an Ice-goddess, nothing more. The only Beast which resembled a real mystic god was Quetzacoatl in FF VIII. Not only by name, but in the manual too if i recall it right..

but as I said it doesn’t matter to me, if there are names which are assigned to some things in our real world. After all, the JRPG’s are Fantasy and made to enjoy I think. Why shouting about the name given to the big Boss in FF X ? SIN…. okay, but I don’t think it was choosen because of the meaning of the word “sin”. What if it has an other meaning? ALL I want to say i, that I play JRPG because of the Story and the Characters. I can overlook such small things like the names of gods like Shiva or some other things. No matter what some people say, the FF-series has up today a huge amount of fans. I don’t think, that you would call them all fools, because they overlook such things?

Would you call SoM as an bad game, because one young man takes a holy sword (mana sword) out of an stone. A HOLY SWORD OUT OF AN STONE, just like King Arthur did with Excalibur? Call you SoM the same as you called FF because there is such an thing? Like I said before, i don’t care. After all the Story of SoM or better known as Seiken Densetsu 2, was realy amazing, even nowadays I play this game with joy. The same for all FF-Games from I to X-2. FF XII is an exception, because i sensed no feelings in the story. Yeah it was full of action, drama, fate and turns. But I couldn’t get some real feeling out of the deepts of some Chars. Its hard to explain in english, but after all I must say, that in every single RPG may lie a bit which has its original in our history, world or religion. Even if it is only a slight bit.

Its the same as you could say every game is shit, because they have after all the same scheme. A bad guy raises his power and one or some good guys begin to fight him. Most likely would one of the good guys die in the progress, but at the very end the good guys allways defeat the bad guy and peace returns. It doesn’t matter, what you make up for the story, after all its allways the same. But does someone complain about it? Maybe, but after all there are enough people who continue to play, no matter what. Its the same for me. I will continue to play JRPG as long the storys and the Charas satisfy me. Thats all i have to say..

And a follow up post to this is coming, I’ve just been continually sidetracked…

Playing Lost Odyssey made me realize that there is a simple, perhaps even mathematical, balance and polish to the classic system, and given a few tweaks and spit-shine; the old becomes new again in LO. Well, old-school difficulty and the fact that for once in OVER A DECADE I actually HAD to use my mages and expend quite a bit of mana to win RANDOM ENCOUNTERS, was really a refreshing breath of air.

Also, surprisingly, status effects are really quite handy in LO. The Rings system allow the elements/status effects/varied effects to be tailored to your weapon as you see fit, even in battle, and to accomplish some challenges you MUST use these effects.

But LO pretty much epitomizes everything you’ve said here, and yet, aptly demonstrates just WHY we fell in love with those genre staples, but bringing the CORE component to its next evolution.

I’m talking of course, about the STORY.

What made Final Fantasy I stand out from the crowd? Not just its newfangled side-by-side battle system that displayed both you and your enemies at the same time, or its stirring score (for an 8-bit system); it was the “two paragraphs more” of story that began to set it apart. Keep in mind that it was the NES and that whole go-back-in-time thing was a pretty nice twist.

Still, where have we gone since then? Let’s look at FF specifically here. My very big pet peeve: The use of Jungian terminology and philosophy, Christian motifs, and the wrongful representation of various sacred icons from various cultures in Final Fantasies. The first few FFs borrowed liberally from the reimaginings of beasties like Bahamut and Tiamat from the D&D Monster Compendiums; the later ones however, rather than fostering their OWN mythology, instead corrupted existing real-world ones into a mish-mash that has no literal or inherent meaning or merit.

For example, FFVII, dear gawd the Christian imagery/motifs/names just up and BITCH-SLAPS you in the face! “I’m Sephiroth the One-Winged Angel! BEHOLD MY INEVITABLE BETRAYAL AND IRONIC ROLE REVERSAL!”

And in this same ‘universe’, there are PHOENIXES (well, that’s where the Down comes from. There are obviously, a lot of balding phoenixes in FFs), and SHIVA (and Squenix, Shiva’s an adrogynous God of Destruction; NOT A FREAKING ICE MOTORCYCLE GODDESS!), and inexplicably giant dragons and over-the-counter steroids under the streetname ‘potion’!

FFX then had you, how imaginatively, fighting SIN. In capitals! SIN!

In my honest opinion, earlier FFs first had to draw on recognizable imagery to convey basic story elements. Yet, the universe in FF6 in all its 16-bit sprite glory had far more coherence than the random leather-clad wonder that is FFVII’s world (where Midgar is New Jersey and obviously, Gold Saucer is Vegas).

There is NO MORE EXCUSE for Squenix to not spend some CREATIVE muscle and mind to just make up a damn mythology! If you’re going to wreck a tradition, WRECK IT WHOLLY, so at least, the pain you get from seeing a face you know being mutilated is lessened.

Which is why I can actually take LO’s story inclusive of its world so well! In fact, while its story is naturally, not fully explained even at the end and leaving quite a few questions (which set-up for nice sequels though), Mistwalker has put much more effort in establishing its characters in the world they are in far more than Squenix has ever done.

An original mythology is one thing I loved about LO. There are no blatantly inexplicable excuses for summons, or this-could-only-happen-in-anime style Limit Breaks; but that’s because for once in a low while, your characters are the same characters in and out of battle.

But to get back, I want to say that LO has taken the RIGHT step in the evolution of the JRPG genre. The character-driven story. The characters in LO interact and relate in much more convincing and in just downright better acted manners than any of the other ‘modern’ JRPGs. They’re given the same treatment as if they were part of a novel or a movie, they’re not going to have stupid dialouge, and they’re not just banding together for no reason.

I can’t say much on the story without spoiling. It IS traditional of course, good guys and bad guys, save the world, etc. etc.. Hell, if HIGHLANDER suddenly rings in your head while playing LO, seriously, you are NOT alone on that.

But as any literature student can tell you, all stories are basically different versions of the 9 basic stories in literature. Its the presentation that counts. LO is brilliant in that presentation.

The main character, Kaim, is for once, sufficiently motivated. Betrayal and revenge and fulfillment of duty – Stock motivations to be sure, but the devil is in the details. Cloud wants to get Sephiroth for burning a village, which I’m still not sure if Cloud even came from (personally, I think there was a homoerotic undertone in his relationship with Seph, but maybe that’s me…no, it’s…prolly not me). Oh, and yeah, save the world because he’s going to…force the planet to make a huge scab!

Kaim wants to kill “bad guy” for betrayal of duty, to fulfill his own long overdue mission, and vengeance because “bad guy” literally made someone very very dear to Kaim (the relationship is important to the emotional crunch, so I can’t say it) commit suicide before his eyes.

Kaim is ,you should know, over 1000 years old in the game (not a spoiler, it’s in the ads and on the box). The story revolves around his immortality, and the secrets of the past that is revealed.

No other JRPG hero in history has the emotional baggage to have sufficient reason to be labeled ‘emo’. And Kaim really isn’t, he’s just feeling and yet…unfeeling.

There’s nothing much more that I can say. I wholeheartedly believe that LO has made me fall in love with JRPG again. If Squenix wants to make a dial-a-combo battle system in FFXIII, then go ahead, but I just don’t think that really makes it JRPG anymore, does it? It’s Action-RPG. Like Kingdom Hearts.

Mysterious things start to happen and there is even a special “hour” that “normal” people don´t know about.

To this we add a dungeon crawler, you have 258 floors or so to go trough in Tartarus. Quite tedious and boring since if the main hero dies, it´s game over, add instant kill spells and well… let´s just say that irritation is high.

What is the driving force that makes me want to keep comming back to level my characters? To be able to drive the story forward. I want to know what happends with the characters and how they develop. They all have personal problems and things aren´t always good, there are a lot of sad moments in Persona 3.

To the dungeon crawler we add a school simulator, where you as the main hero has to go to school, take tests, participate in events etc etc. Here we also introduce the Social Link system, where some people are persons that you can get close to, the sweet classmate Yukari, the sempai Mitsuru and more. Give the right “answer” when they ask you about important stuff and you can develop feelings for eachother.

You want to take care of the people close to you and you want to save the world from “the Shadows” that are creating havoc in town.

So why do I love RPGs? Mainly the story, give me a good story that I want to finish and I´ll play trough most of the stuff that others would throw away.

Crusader: I think you might win the prize for longest comment on this blog ;)

Setsukyie: I think we’re on the same wavelength here

Neriya: That’s why I ended the sentence “but most bosses are immune to status effects anyway”. I do remember a couple of instances where a status effect has actually worked on a boss (and not just Vanish/X-Zone) but I probably should have said “In principle, the only battles…”
For everything else you’ve said, I almost feel like writing another post to respond to it all (hell, why not?) so for now I’ll just say that I too have many PS2 RPGs to play; actually, the only ‘new’ games I really want are the various PSP remakes of old PSOne titles, and as I haven’t even bought a PSP yet, there’s hardly any rush.

One of my pet peeves is when the random encounter rate is too high. A few culprits come to mind, but mainly older games. And like you say the bosses after long cutscenes who either take a lot of beating or have cheap-ass instant death/reduce hp to 1~10 attacks which you can only prepare for if you’ve read a walkthrough beforehand.

>>The only battles where status effects really help are the longer boss battles

I laughed hard at this bit. Debuffs *ever* working on bosses??!

But I think the best thing about RPG’s is that they’re an interactive cross of a book and a movie. And a strong story or strong characters (preferable both) reward trekking through some of the more repetitive aspects of the genre. I really like those that let you interact with the characters in your party as you go along (Suikoden’s castle, Star Ocean 2’s private actions, and several other good examples).

You’re also given more freedom in how you want to play than in most other genres, so you can explore as much of the game worlds as you like, or go straight from significant location A to doing significant thing B etc without talking to all the people in a town and going to check out any sidequests they may offer, or collecting any of the chests in a location.

I personally enjoy getting the best equipment for a certain stage of the game for free by looking for it, or turning the leading female caster into a physical attacker better than any of the mid tier fighters in the party though stat boosting items and equipment (Elly in Xenogears is my favourite example of this, doing more damage than even lead male Fei at some points in the game).

But sadly the current market seems to have taken some of the bad aspects you’ve mentioned too much to heart, so now we’ve got less “true” RPGs coming out than ever on current gen consoles, and things like Mass Effect and other games with varying degrees of RPG elements being labelled as RPGs. Still, I’ve got plenty of PS2 RPGs to play yet.

About the battles,
I don’t like random encounters..
They get really annoying from time to time..
But most of the RPGs I play have random encounters..
And my favorite RPG has random encounters..
I also prefer real-time battles more than turn-based ones..

Cutscenes are ok..
Sidequests and Mini-games..
I won’t even bother with them..

In the end, I still continue to play RPGs despite all the above..
Because RPGs are really fun..

I think that if you like grinding level, getting sweet drops, and perhaps a better than average story then sitting through a Final Fantasy or any other RPG in one go can be fun.

Mass Effect was the last RPG I was hell bent on finishing, mostly because the story was that engaging and that combat wasn’t that tedious and gave the illusion of being and FPS. I did the side quest simply to get more xp so that I could get the achievement the first time. the second time I didn’t want to do all of them since side quests don’t often add to the main story. the character specific ones on the other hand I did do because I wanted to keep my party members happy. It also reminded me of how bland JRPG turn based combat can be for me. The dialog options were a big plus for me since the female voice actor for the protagonist sounded deliciously snarky and bad ass when I used the renegade options. The other characters were pretty witty and funny too since I would often simply ride an elevator just to hear them interact with one another. The bosses weren’t too challenging and death while frustrating was usually the result of sticking your head out when a missile barreled towards you. At first it was kind of tough going but once I unlocked the Master Spectre weapons and got some tier seven items and more abilities the fireworks just got better and better,

I still consider Legend of Zelda to be an RPG of sorts, but unlike most RPGs there is no leveling system per se and combat is much more fluid and under player control. Learning new combat techniques and getting hearts is nice but not mandatory since in theory if you are good enough you can beat the bosses with just he hearts you get from beating the previous bosses. The story is simple but still engaging enough, the story for Twilight Princess still had a few surprises and had a bittersweet feel to it. The Phantom Hourglass had its moments and was still delightfully funny at times. Twilight Princess still has some of the most memorable boss fights for me in recent memory.

Super Paper Mario is one of my favorites since the turn based combat was swapped for good olde fashioned head stomping. Also the humor was top notch and the story was much better than I expected. Also the Nerd Chapter made turned me into a cackling mad man for the duration of the level. All in all i suppose that if at least one or more elements of an RPG make it enjoyable a player will usually overlook the deficiencies of the game or the reuse of the same old turn based combat plus a few minor tweaks.

I think Yahtzee has was right when he did a review of the Witcher and Mass Effect on how rpgs can be frustrating at times.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2831-Zero-Punctuation-The-Witcher

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/2831-Zero-Punctuation-The-Witcher