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Forums - Gaming Discussion - JRPGs just not as good or maybe it's the music?

forest-spirit on 03 February 2010
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!

Two of your favourite JRPG's are remakes of Snes games.

 

OT:

I have lost some of my interest in JRPG's this gen. I can't say if it's because of what this gen has offered so far or if I'm just growing tired of them. I feel like I've already played the best games the genre as to offer. I need something new, something fresh.

 

Edit:

Or maybe I need something really old-school...I have no idea...I know I loved, and still love, FFVI, Chrono Trigger, Xenogears and Valkyrie Profile among a couple of other games. I want more of those.

 

Hopefully this year will fire up my JRPG soul once again with games like Resonance of Fate and Fragile, and maybe Xenoblade and Tales of Graces if those two arrive this year.



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darthdevidem01 on 03 February 2010

OK OK guys I know I put remakes in my list

but euphoria's my pal so it was my secret way of supporting him without looking biased!!!



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Euphoria14 on 03 February 2010
MontanaHatchet said:

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.

I can agree to this as well, but I also feel the music just isn't there as well. Who knows maybe I just don't listen for the music in the way I used to because when the music would come on I would try to connect with these characters and their emotions when the music plays. Now if I have a totally boring character like Kaim (Sorry LO fans) I won't listen to the music and try to connect because honestly I don't care about his character at all.

You're assumption could be right on the money as well Montana because as I said, the only character I have really liked this gen has been Yuri Lowell. I also remember music from the game as well.



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reaver_x on 03 February 2010

persona 3 & 4 was the last JRPG's i played that had great music. Havent seen any this gen that was reallly memorable(as much as i love LO the music was kinda meh). Hopefully FFXIII gives me some great soundtracks that i can put on my MP3 lol




 

 

                     

Son1x on 03 February 2010

VC had a good sountrack.
And all the other JRPG's I've played this gen were composed by Sakuraba, who does similar stuff all the time anyway.

But of course, since Iwadare hasn't composed anything this gen, yea, it could be just music



"And yet, I've realized that maybe living a "decent" life means you won't ever have a "good" life."

 

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Lurker on 03 February 2010

The JRPGs are just stale today. You could make them all on SNES and they'd be the same games just in 2D.



outlawauron on 03 February 2010

I don't JRPGs music has gotten much worse. There are definitely a few game soundtracks that sound quite good.



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Euphoria14 on 03 February 2010
outlawauron said:
I don't JRPGs music has gotten much worse. There are definitely a few game soundtracks that sound quite good.

Could you recommend me some games that have memorable soundtracks?



iPhone = Great gaming device. Don't agree? Who cares, because you're wrong.

Currently playing:

Final Fantasy VI (iOS), Final Fantasy: Record Keeper (iOS) & Dragon Quest V (iOS)     

    

Got a retro room? Post it here!

g-value on 05 February 2010

Xenoblade will provide you your's jrpg musical needs with Xenoblade (since Mitsuda is composing the music for it). Also, I feel the same way as you do. One of the main reasons why I loved jrpgs from the PS1 era so much is because jrpgs back then had wonderful music. It was the music that really brought the events that happened in the stories to life.



makingmusic476 on 05 February 2010

I think it has to do with JRPG tales not improving over the past decade, and by extension how music is incorporated into these tales via cutscenes and whatnot.

The narratives of the 90s could be portrayed just fine via text, and the same holds true for DS games liek Sands of Destruction, but on current gen consoles we're in the age of elaborate cutscenes, and those same narratives aren't cutting it, as JRPGs are often filled with cliche moments (the Jedi mind trick scene that opens WKC) and/or have an awkward and disjointed script.

Final Fantasy is really the only franchise that has come a long way in this area (look at the voice acting in FFX > FFXII > FFXIII, though ToV and VC have made nice improvements for the genre as well). Compare JRPGs overall to WRPGs like Mass Effect and things just look weak.  From what I've seen of SO4 and IU, and what I've played of ES and WKC, they feel like FFX in an age when that's hardly acceptable.

Of course, this is only one aspect from an overall package, and I'm quite enjoying WKC despite this, but when a genre focuses heavily on storytelling, at least make the storytelling enjoyable.