darkknightkryta said:
May I ask which "JRPGs"? Except for Star Ocean 3 and Final Fantasy XII, that I've played, all my inventory was filled with healing items, current armour, or items used to enhance weapons/armour/stats (Which doesn't make them useless FYI). |
Nearly every Final Fantasy game since the SNES days (possibly before but I never played I-III for any decent length of time), Grandia 1 & 2, Xenoblade Chronicles and StarOcean 3 (never played 4 and I only vaguely remember 1 & 2). I mean, just take FFVIII for instance. You collect a range of items in the game, but for large portions I didn't even bother having the item command in battle as I could get by based on Junctioned magic. Actually, at the end of most Final Fantasy games I had a whole host of useless items I never needed to use because I either had an equivalent spell or a more powerful/useful ability already available. The items I actually used (healing potions, elixirs, ethers, heroes etc.) were the very items I would be short of or at the very least tactically rationing. Not to mention that most weapons and armour are useless after a short period anyway.
I make the same argument for the likes of Mass Effect 1, Neverwinter Nights or Dragon Age. The problem isn't something that's exclusive to one sub-genre of RPGs. There's also the argument of how the RPGs organise items. Few manage to get an intuitive system together. They usually just boil down to edited/sorted lists or in the worst case scenario, something resembling an Excel spreadsheet.
Now, I could say the likes of the Deus Ex series or Mass Effect 2 & 3 are examples of WRPGs getting inventory systems right, but that wouldn't be very representative.