Liked JRPGs as a kid. Don’t now. The stories are just anime for the most part, the gameplay is a skinner box where the treat pellets are cutscenes, and once I’d read some books and whatever, they generally come off as pretty trite. No matter the twist on it, it’s shonen with what is barely gameplay and I don’t like shonen. There are good ones, Earthbound and Mother 3 are something else (aside from the gameplay which is, pretty eh at best tbh), Chrono Trigger (of course), I can fuck with the Tales games cause of the gameplay and I eat tactical jrpgs for breakfast but that’s cause I really like turn based strategy games. Your standard party vs monster with overworld and battle screens and menus just bug me now. The ones I have enjoyed are very very strategy heavy or are like Bug Fable or Mario and Luigi with good real time elements. Pokémon could be cool
the gameplay is a skinner box where the treat pellets are cutscenes
Me as a kid cheating this system by running from battles so I could get to the next cutscene or town to talk to people in (yes, I liked getting one line of dialoug from each NPC that much). Then ending up coming up against a boss that I’m underleveled for, getting stuck, and quitting.
Honestly for me growing up has been learning to enjoy the gameplay part more as well. I get what you’re saying though. But personally I like the narratives of pretty much every game in the FF series a lot, for example. And the Tales series as you mention. Other ones have more simple ones but still feel satisfying to me to explore it. I just find that method of narrative exploration very rewarding.
But I also like Shonen lol so that probably has something to do with it.
Liking Shonen will get you everywhere with JRPGs. Some FF games have their moments I’ve played 1-7 as well as 10 and 12, there’s some pretty good stuff there, but I wouldn’t really rank any above YA quality, which is the target audience and I liked it then. Tales games have good characters usually but the narrative is usually both convolulted and pretty shallow at the same time. I also believe there’s only about 25 or so games that actually have really good stories, and that’s leaving room for ones I haven’t played.
Liked JRPGs as a kid. Don’t now. The stories are just anime for the most part, the gameplay is a skinner box where the treat pellets are cutscenes, and once I’d read some books and whatever, they generally come off as pretty trite. No matter the twist on it, it’s shonen with what is barely gameplay and I don’t like shonen. There are good ones, Earthbound and Mother 3 are something else (aside from the gameplay which is, pretty eh at best tbh), Chrono Trigger (of course), I can fuck with the Tales games cause of the gameplay and I eat tactical jrpgs for breakfast but that’s cause I really like turn based strategy games. Your standard party vs monster with overworld and battle screens and menus just bug me now. The ones I have enjoyed are very very strategy heavy or are like Bug Fable or Mario and Luigi with good real time elements. Pokémon could be cool
Me as a kid cheating this system by running from battles so I could get to the next cutscene or town to talk to people in (yes, I liked getting one line of dialoug from each NPC that much). Then ending up coming up against a boss that I’m underleveled for, getting stuck, and quitting.
Honestly for me growing up has been learning to enjoy the gameplay part more as well. I get what you’re saying though. But personally I like the narratives of pretty much every game in the FF series a lot, for example. And the Tales series as you mention. Other ones have more simple ones but still feel satisfying to me to explore it. I just find that method of narrative exploration very rewarding.
But I also like Shonen lol so that probably has something to do with it.
Liking Shonen will get you everywhere with JRPGs. Some FF games have their moments I’ve played 1-7 as well as 10 and 12, there’s some pretty good stuff there, but I wouldn’t really rank any above YA quality, which is the target audience and I liked it then. Tales games have good characters usually but the narrative is usually both convolulted and pretty shallow at the same time. I also believe there’s only about 25 or so games that actually have really good stories, and that’s leaving room for ones I haven’t played.