First AAA JRPG of this generation?

[Impulsivity]

naznatips said:

Impulsivity said:
Seriously? How can you not like Jade Empire or the original KOTOR? (NOT KOTOR 2, that was Obsidians fault)

More recently Mass Effect is without a doubt the best RPG on the market from the last 3 years. I don't know...everything about their games is more or less spot on, I can't think of a bad game they've made offhand. There aren't many companies I can say that about (maybe Naughty Dog).

 

KOTOR was awesome.  It's also 5 and a half years old, and they haven't made a great game since then.  Mass Effect is a mess.  There's a good game in there, but it's as repetitive and simplistic as any JRPG, and from a technical perspective one of the worst designed high-budget games this generation. It's just not criticized for it due to our current review system loving muscly space marines and guns and things that go boom.  Not to mention sex.

 

  So it is possible to have sex with one of the other characters if you develop a relationship just before the end of the game...is that unrealistic given the way human relationships work?  Do you expect that characters who have been through months of very stressful situations would not develop some kind of bond and maybe even, yes, a physical relationship?  It isn't just WRPGs that feature this, if you remember Xenogears the two main characters had sex in that as well just before the end.  These games are not pokemon, they aren't designed for the 5-10 year old market.

 

   As to the muscly space marines thing, that isn't at all the point of mass effect.  It was a very interesting and yes, deep and involved, story.  Just because it took place in the future as opposed to a dream world of magic does not mean that the issues it addressed from abuse of power to corruption in government to the potential dangers of complex self conscious AI were not well addressed and engaging.  

 

   Again I go back to choice as the engine of WRPG superiority.  In Mass Effect you could approach problems in very different ways.  In the end of the game you can make decisions (which I won't spoil) which can lead to a continuation of an intergalactic republic or a human led totalitarian dictatorship.  All through the game you can approach questions in interesting and diverse ways, even questions without a clear answer.  If the last surviving Queen of a formerly hostile alien race promises to live in harmony with the rest of the galaxy do you let her live or do you finish the genocide of her species?  Do you turn in a dissident on a corrupt planet to its ruling dictator or do you help him find evidence sufficient to bring that corrupt leader down?  There are just great questions and situations in the game that are more complex then anything I've seen in JRPGs recently.  There are great shades of grey much like in real life, while almost all JRPGs still deal primarily in black and white and never really give the player any choices other then what gear to equip or what spell to learn.