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PoV: The JRPG Story and You - The Eastern Shooter |
Listed in: PSP, PS3, Nintendo DS, Xbox 360, PC Gaming Tags: bethesda software, breath of death, dark souls, Final Fantasy, From Software, jrpg, new vegas, rpg, wrpg, zeboyd games
| Article Index |
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| 1. PoV: The JRPG Story and You |
| 2. Demon's Souls and You |
| 3. The Eastern Shooter |
Traditional JRPG's on the other hand seem to be very story-orientated and while you never really do anything evil, the weight of your actions are only based on if you do them or not, rather than a striving for a morally ambiguous goal. I personally would have loved to have seen a Final Fantasy on the bad guys side of things or even one where you actually get to place the evil creatures on the map for a hero to fight through not dissimilar to the Holy Badman series.
Also the humourous Breath of Death VII and Cthulu Saves the World from Zeboyd Games took the traditional 16-bit style of JRPG's and blended it with a tongue-in-cheek look into what traditional RPG tropes there were. Zeboyd Games shone through with making sure they were praising but also lamp-shading the fact that RPG's are a bit dated and samey when you boil it down.
Of course, like I mentioned before, this was not always the case. The JRPG is far from shallow. It just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Players want more from their gaming experience than just a linear story now-a-days.
Final Fantasy 7 is a great example for classic linear JRPG story-telling but also it gives an interesting point with raising the question of death and what that means in the FF universe. After six games of just being able to use Phoenix Down's willy-nilly you are given a character right off the bat who you learn bits and pieces about before finally, spoiler, she dies and you are given a second act turning point in which your goals now seem greater than ever before.
While I never really play Final Fantasy games and enjoy them I still find them a relic to the testament of formulaic gaming but only by name. As opposed to Westernized sequels where the number is either a year or a new iteration, Square Enix intentionally makes a canon-less effort (excluding X-2, XIII-2, etc.) to create games with new storylines. But why not create a new game?
It all comes down to branding. The gamer mind will be drawn more to something they've enjoyed before or a license they enjoy watching/listening to because it's a sense of comfort. It lulls the average consumer to build a name and recall characters. It's quite similar to how the word Mario to millions of people worldwide is synonymous with gaming.
So while creating new properties and titles could be an interesting step forward we may only see that in the light of independent games such as Minecraft, Sequence, Dungeons of Dredmore or Binding of Isaac. The gaming world will be fraught with gaming genre mashups that reflect either gamers needs or developers intentions and while both can work well simultaneously, JRPG's need to get their act together if they want to thrive in the global scheme of things.
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Comments
I don't have time to play a game that take a month to beat. I work for a living and have a family to care for. So I usually tweak a game just enough to remove any need to have to REPEAT any part of the game. Like having to play a level a million times before getting lucky in beating it.
Play through the game, get the story then move on.
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While it is true that games like skyrim and Fallout are far superior rpgs to most jrpg out there on the market, i beleive the lack of a strong story to drive the character foward is something they could have learned from all the great jrpgs that came before, like ff7 you mentionned.
I don't mean that there is poor story telling in either of the previous mentionned games,just not a strong enough sense of urgency to accomplish your goal, having 10000 side quest is always fun but if the main quest is too short or barely interesting, in the end its a loss for such production...
Think of fallout 1 for example. You set out on a journey to save your vault from destruction because their water chip is broken and needs replacement, you're on a timer, there's so much to do but you still got to focus on your main quest otherwise everyone back in the vault will die, and even when you save them a new threat arises with super mutants, and twist at the end where after all you did for your vaut *spoiler* you are casted away...
I will always prefer a game with a great story rather than pretty graphics because when you play a good jrpg, it should feel like you are reading a great book and that can't drop till you finish it
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sometime i wonder if they are making those chances thinking its what people want....
Though you can still get good gaming from Tales games and such, but when i think of classic jrpg that took a turn for the worst, its defenetly final fantasy that comes to mind. But then again, it all started with the fusion of squaresoft and enix, but that's a whole other story
Anyway, I think you did a great job writing that article, keep up the good work :)
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