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Forums - Gaming - What are the worst cliches in JRPGs?

Jordahn on 26 March 2009
Pristine20 said:
forevercloud3000 said:
Pristine20 said:
forevercloud3000 said:

Did someone say androgenous male characters?

this is wardrobe malfunction to make Janet Jackson cringe! It WOULD have been a kick ass design.......for a FEMALE CHARACTER!!!!!

magna  carta just sucked regardless of what the character design was.

I hope people who complain about androgynous males don't want muscleheads either. Variety is best with normal males being the best option. Games never seem to find the right balance.

 

 

I agree. Keep Marcus Fenix looking bastards out of my JRPG, eeeww! And I sort of liked Magna Carta for how much I played it (Story Wise) but I could no longer stand looking at Calintz or dealing with it's rediculously difficult to manage fighting system to continue any further. I returned it before I was even a quarter done with the game. I just love the art design of it all, very beautiful game, regardless of it's faults.

There are a few perfectly balanced ones out their. Persona 4's "Protaganist" is pretty good looking but cannot be mistaken for a girl.

 

Magna carta's battle system and items killed me. I've played so many jRPGs but I never got the hang of that one. That's why I gave up on the game. It's sad because the opening movie was very good and the story seemed promising but you spend the most time during gameplay and I grind A LOT in my jRPGs because nothing is better than being overpowered.

 

Speaking of opening movies, at the time I was super psyched for Suikoden III because I loved the first two a lot.  The opening anime sequence and music was so enthralling that it justified my anticipation.  But the actual game itself let's just say that regardless of some rave reviews of this game, playing Suikoden III was like eating a box of cardboard cereal without the milk while being still expereincing the lactose intolerant effects of it.



Hackers are poor nerds who don't wash.

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oliist on 26 March 2009

Hopefully the main japanese JRPG developers are never going to read this thread.
Because if they would take out ALL the mentioned cliches most future JRPGs would be completely hollow or bad copies of WRPGs. ;p



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shinyuhadouken on 26 March 2009
SmokedHostage said:

Bosses that you're supposed to lose to.

Androgynous Males.

Woman only using magic or bows/ranged attacks.

Someone in your party double-crossing you about halfway thru.

Love Interests that constantly need saving.

 

All of the above. Also, high-pitched female voices drive me insane.



Not a 360 fanboy, just a PS3 fanboy hater that likes putting them in their place ^.^

Jordahn on 26 March 2009
zexen_lowe said:
Jordahn said:
mexitalrish said:
protagonists being incredibly young for as good as their abilities are. able to gain strength way too rapidly

 

That's what I perfer the first Suikoden over the second.  The main character in the first was in his mid twenties and was the son of a great general.  Lot's of training and maturity, very believable.  The main character in the second was sixteen year old in a junior brigade.  That's alright, but what made him to be such a great leader was "HIS EYES" as claimed by Shu, the strategist.  What.....?

Don't hate me, but:

The unnamed hero of the game (named Tir McDohl in the novelization by Shinjiro Hori). He is the silent protagonist of Suikoden and 16 years old at the beginning of the game

 

He looks older though, I agree

 

Hmmm...  That in of itself is probably true, but the North American suikoden instruction manual stated that he was 26.  Thanks for the info though.



Hackers are poor nerds who don't wash.

Mirson on 26 March 2009
Pristine20 said:
forevercloud3000 said:
silent protaganists!!!!! THis just needs to DIE!!!!

Only 2 games in history were ever allowed to get away with this.
Chrono Trigger: becuase it was so old it cannot be faulted for it.
and
Persona 4: because the game was just that damn awesome.

Yet even with these two, they could have been better with voice acting.

 

Have you played the Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga games? Serph was an awesome silent protagonist. I think the devs like people to impose themselves on these characters. I'd rather have voices but this isn't a big issue for me.

My most annoying cliche: "teenagers saving the world"

Can we please have young adults? I guess they want to get away with immature love stories. Also, please lets have a different storyline for once. This is why I really like SMT:Noctune, DDS and DDS2

As much as I like DDS, I disagree about Serph. He's a useless main character. He's the leader of his group, but every plan and etc. is made by someone else in the group. Also, you're not forced to use him, and the game would've been better off if he wasn't silent. Nocturne makes sense in having a silent protagonist.

My most annoying cliche is the same as yours: the typical "save the world from utter destruction." Give me something interesting like Nocturne and DDS.



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Words Of Wisdom on 26 March 2009

I love how people who hate the "save the world" plots are always in favor of a similarly cliched plot. Would you like your eggs sunny-side up or scrambled?



Sky Render on 26 March 2009

Thinking back on FF9 made me update my cliche list with one of my most hated traits of RPGs: Nelson's Rule. That is, things in RPGs that appear to have been specifically designed to piss the player off by being entirely unintuitive, just so the developer can belt out "HA HA!" in the player's face. Plenty of games have this bad habit of insulting the player for not reading the developers' minds (a lot of them very, very bad games, I might add), but RPGs take the middle finger approach to whole new levels of childish and petty taunting.

How many times in an RPG have you done what seems to make perfect sense (such as attacking an enemy), and been punished for it (like having that enemy spontaneously belt out a direct counterattack to your attack that comes close to or actually does wipe your entire party out)? How many times in a game have you been given some arbitrary and totally nonsensical task (defeat 10 forms in 10 seconds! - Kingdom Hearts 2), and been punished when this spontaneous bit of nonsense was not completed (couldn't defeat 10 forms in 10 seconds? GAME OVER! Reload! Hope you like re-watching that 20-minute cutscene!)?

That sort of game design, above all else, really tweaks my short hairs, no matter if it's in an RPG, an action game, an adventure game, a puzzle game, or any other genre. Games should not punish you heavily for doing what makes the most sense, nor should they give you out-of-the-blue nonsense goals that punish failure with severe consequences.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.

Words Of Wisdom on 26 March 2009
Sky Render said:
Thinking back on FF9 made me update my cliche list with one of my most hated traits of RPGs: Nelson's Rule. That is, things in RPGs that appear to have been specifically designed to piss the player off by being entirely unintuitive, just so the developer can belt out "HA HA!" in the player's face. Plenty of games have this bad habit of insulting the player for not reading the developers' minds (a lot of them very, very bad games, I might add), but RPGs take the middle finger approach to whole new levels of childish and petty taunting.

How many times in an RPG have you done what seems to make perfect sense (such as attacking an enemy), and been punished for it (like having that enemy spontaneously belt out a direct counterattack to your attack that comes close to or actually does wipe your entire party out)? How many times in a game have you been given some arbitrary and totally nonsensical task (defeat 10 forms in 10 seconds! - Kingdom Hearts 2), and been punished when this spontaneous bit of nonsense was not completed (couldn't defeat 10 forms in 10 seconds? GAME OVER! Reload! Hope you like re-watching that 20-minute cutscene!)?

That sort of game design, above all else, really tweaks my short hairs, no matter if it's in an RPG, an action game, an adventure game, a puzzle game, or any other genre. Games should not punish you heavily for doing what makes the most sense, nor should they give you out-of-the-blue nonsense goals that punish failure with severe consequences.

I totally agree.  You know what other game is totally like that?  Mario Bros.

Okay so I'm going to go touch this little mushroom thing.  WTF I just died?

Okay let's go poke this plant over here.  Holy @#%^, I just died again.  Why did no one tell me about killer mushrooms and plants?

Okay look, it's a turtle.  He doesn't look evil.  God @%#^)!

Okay, flora and fauna hate me.  Good to know.  I wonder what's down hole...  F#@%



Sky Render on 26 March 2009

Words of Wisdom, you don't live up to your alias very well... The examples you gave don't make any sense, whereas the ones I gave DO make sense. Your examples are clearly demonstrated as silly just by watching the attract mode for the game, or watching another player play the game first (which is what pretty much every kid did at an arcade before popping coins in a machine, so they didn't waste $2 learning the basics of how to play).

Were Mario to violate Nelson's Rule, it would do so by, say, making power-up mushrooms randomly hurt you instead of make you bigger. Or it would randomly cause enemies to jump directly into your path without warning or any ability to dodge that, when they normally don't ever do anything like that. Having enemies and traps is not bad game design. Making them arbitrary or springing them on you without adequate warning or time to react is.



Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.

Dgc1808 on 26 March 2009
SmokedHostage said:

Bosses that you're supposed to lose to.

Androgynous Males.

Woman only using magic or bows/ranged attacks.

Someone in your party double-crossing you about halfway thru.

Love Interests that constantly need saving.

 

These.



4 ≈ One