| ookaze said: This man clearly doesn't understand JRPG, so I'm not surprised by his comments. I was bored by WRPG far before JRPG. True tabletop RPGs are about role-playing, imagination and maths problems that you have to overcome. On consoles/computers, only maths and imagination remained in the past, and now, with all the useless fluff they are adding in most JRPG, only math remains. Same with WRPG. There are exceptions like Dragon Quest or Pokemon, but that will disappear if they make them less stylised and more "real". I understand since a long time why I'm starting to prefer SRPG, because as only math remains, most JRPG and WRPG are moving their content to strategy and tactics. Maths stays the main attract of JRPG and WRPG though. But with how simplified they have become this gen, I'm not surprised JRPG are on the decline in the western countries. Only if you play for the maths can you appreciate JRPG, but I've yet again seen people play FFXIII and now I clearly understand. Playstation era gamers play these games just to see the story through the end, so they seem to not enjoy the combats at all, and the combat, strategy and tactics is the main interest in JRPG. But most people don't understand that and call battles "grinding": they don't enjoy it. I see these people entering battles, spamming attack and heal, showing they lack any ounce of strategy or tactic (or maths). When they're wiped out by a more powerful enemy, they will retry sometimes 10+ times the battle (they're fortunate in the case of FFXIII) before finding a way to get it past! When I would have cleared the battle the first time! Some would have resorted to grinding instead, which they hate doing. JRPG allows for all those types of play, but people that play JRPG like this sure must find them boring and dull, thus the decline. But I'm not surprised that maths is a chore to them, these Playstation era players can't even read! Countless times I hear about "too much text to read", "it lacks voice over", "we don't need the original VA" (because it forces them to read the subtitles). The decline of JRPG, to me, is not due to JRPG not evolving, but because of it evolving to resemble WRPG. Lots of JRPG (except, again, DQ or Pokemon) evolved to the Playstation era gamers, putting off the traditional gamer like me, with lots of useless things like cutscenes, long boring intro sequences, dumbing down the maths, ... FFXIII especially looks boring to me, which is sad. While sth like EoE looks more interesting to me, and unfortunately it looks like another SRPG. This generation, I think I have more SRPG than traditional JRPG, which is sad. |
You are kidding right? You actually believe that the 4th grade math employed by RPG's is their attraction? You are wrong. Anyway, what you call math is refered to by many as min/maxing. Although fun when you have a thousands of variables like in NWN and Diablo, JRPG's absolutely fail to provide a mathematical challence of any kind... unless youre in 4th grade mainly because you are given no options. All you do is kill another enemy and everything is automatic. In a WRPG you have to make choices. Should I wear this heavy armor that will slow me down and ruin my spellcasting ability, or should I wear this robe that offers more freedom but no real protection? Should I dual wield or should I use this shield? Should I cast spells or should I sneak? What was the last JRPG that offered any sort of choice aside from simply wearing the most expensive item you can find? As a matter of fact, if you like to min/max the best games to play are WRPG's like NWN2 or Diablo, or any MMO. JRPG's require the least amount of strategy or brain power to "win."
