This is probably nostalgia making me type all of this out for you guys to read, well if you wish to. Anyways here goes.

I have been spending the last hour or so listening to nothing besides some fine tunes by Yasunori Mitsuda, composer of Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Chrono Cross and many other newer titles such as Sands of Destruction and Soma Bringer. While I was listening to some of these tunes, especially the Chrono Cross and Xenogears songs my nostalgia kicked in and I thought back to all of the old JRPGs I used to play, the ones that got me so absorbed in this genre of video games.

I don't want to bore you guys with my tales of gaming weekends and all nighters so i'll just cut to the chase. Even though I do find my stories to be fascinating, but what do you expect, their MY stories.

Could I be out of touch with this generations JRPGs and their music or is it just not up to par with the offerings we got during the years of the SNES and PS1? Music and storyline are THE MOST important aspect in a JRPG for me because the music can explain the situation so much better than words could for me, especially when it comes to how the characters themselves feel. I just don't get that feeling much at all with this gens JRPGs. Only one JRPG has truly grabbed hold of me this generation and that has been Tales of Vesperia and that was mainly due to the storyline and the anti-hero Yuri Lowell.

Is this an isolated case with just me and maybe a few others or does anyone else feel this way? It makes me sad.

By the way I am now listening to "The Girl Who Stole The Stars" from Chrono Cross.

Dunno, did you not like Lost Oddesy?

I think nostalgia is gripping you!

for me the best JRPG of this gen was:

DQ5 Remake, TWEWY, FF4 (DS) Remake......so far

Ofcourse how can I leave a JRPG thread without saying "wait for march 9th" Maybe your wish will come true!

darthdevidem01 said: Dunno, did you not like Lost Oddesy? I think nostalgia is gripping you! for me the best JRPG of this gen was: DQ5 Remake, TWEWY, FF4 (DS) Remake......so far Ofcourse how can I leave a JRPG thread without saying "wait for march 9th" Maybe your wish will come true!

Notice the remakes there? Those share those tunes I am referring to my friend.

Also I didn't find LO to be all that great. Uematsu is a fine composer, I just didn't care much for the storyline at all, especially once I hit disc 4 and the music is easily forgettable in my opinion. I don't mean to say that all the JRPG are bad, I have enjoyed some, just nothing like back in the glory days.

Back in the good days music used to be so much more important to a JRPG where nowadays they can get by since they have all this flashy video.

I loved TWEWY.

Huh? is the current gen of music not to your liking?

No, the reason many older JRPGs are better than the ones we see today is due to the two most ACTUAL important characteristics of JRPGs: Gameplay and Characters.

When it comes to gameplay, many of the older JRPGs are just amazing. Instead of introducing weird new gimmicks and trying out wonky battle systems, they modified their existing systems and innovated slightly. I'm sure many JRPG fans remember the fun of playing the Final Fantasy games on the Playstation 1. Things were a lot simpler then. Now, developers always try to add weird new battle systems and components that JUST DON'T WORK. Or they go the other route and dumb it down way too much. I won't mention any examples, since someone will get pissed off at me.

But another aspects where modern JRPGs have totally failed is the characters. In past JRPGs, each character was unique in the way they fought. Just look at Final Fantasy 9. Every character had their own uses (Vivi was the black magic type, Steiner was the melee type, Zidane was a thief, etc.), and they were all really useful. None of the characters were terrible or had bad stats or were outright useless. And even in the games where there were characters like this, they made up for them with characters that we actually cared about. How many great JRPG characters can we think about from this generation? There are more great characters in Final Fantasy 6 alone than in all of the JRPGs this generation combined. Most gamers you ask could tell you all about Cloud, Sephiroth, and Squall. How many gamers could tell you about Kaim, Shu, or whoever the hell is in Star Ocean 4? You could mention Yuri, but so few people have played Tales of Vesperia that he's completely insignificant (and even then, he's one diamond in a mound of dirt).

As I mentioned before, the two things that set JRPGs apart are the gameplay mechanics (mainly the battle system) and the characters. Developers have consistently tried to change RPG battle systems when they didn't need any change. Why does Square-Enix continue to try to make the series more western when it was most popular with a turn based battle system? And characters are an important aspect too. Many people play JRPGs because they want deep, interesting characters they can connect too. When you play a WRPG, you have nothing of the sort. Maybe you can customize your characters (I tried to make my character look like Fonzie in Oblivion, and Mass Effect, and Fable 2...), but they pretty much do whatever you want them to do and have no personality. The great JRPGs have always been known for their great characters. This hasn't changed.

And for those who read all of this, let me know your thoughts.

Too many cutscenes nowdays, instead of "playing" those scenes now we have to watch them instead.

Usually a RPGs had what?.. like at most 1 hour cutcenes in a 40+ hour game and now? well sometimes it feels like half the game is just cutscenes.

Edit: Damn think this is the first time I have ever agreed with Montanahatchet

Euphoria14 said: darthdevidem01 said: Dunno, did you not like Lost Oddesy? I think nostalgia is gripping you! for me the best JRPG of this gen was: DQ5 Remake, TWEWY, FF4 (DS) Remake......so far Ofcourse how can I leave a JRPG thread without saying "wait for march 9th" Maybe your wish will come true! Notice the remakes there? Those share those tunes I am referring to my friend.   Also I didn't find LO to be all that great. Uematsu is a fine composer, I just didn't care much for the storyline at all, especially once I hit disc 4 and the music is easily forgettable in my opinion. I don't mean to say that all the JRPG are bad, I have enjoyed some, just nothing like back in the glory days.   Back in the good days music used to be so much more important to a JRPG where nowadays they can get by since they have all this flashy video.   I loved TWEWY.

I know its kinda sad that 2 of em are remakes lol

I agree music quality HAS gone down, but why?

Why has this happened?!

darthdevidem01 said: Dunno, did you not like Lost Oddesy? I think nostalgia is gripping you! for me the best JRPG of this gen was: DQ5 Remake, TWEWY, FF4 (DS) Remake......so far Ofcourse how can I leave a JRPG thread without saying "wait for march 9th" Maybe your wish will come true!

Nice way of proving his point!

This gen has been (overall) a rather bad gen for JRPG's the music just reflects that but it's hardly the reason. Notice how the good stuff has good soundtracks, like TWEWY and LO?

Edit: Time of the Dreamwatch pwns Star Stealing Girl!

Euphoria you should expect good things from Xenoblade & The Last Story (post FFXIII)

Those two games, well the music on their sites itself is already really memorable!

I dont think enough important RPGs have come out this gen for me to make a statement about this, but I will say, I doubt music is getting worse.