Love having all my party members twiddling their thumbs defending and healing while one guy fails his steal rolls 10 times in a row
I extra love it if the steal move deals damage so you have to also worry about the target dying from too many failed attempts
I double extra love it when it's a boss battle when on top of everything else the story momentum just grinds to a halt while you fuck with a stupid RNG for 5 minutes
It's also immersion breaking.
So the thief character can steal a unique item from the boss, but I can't loot it from the boss's corpse? What?
To be fair, I don't think JRPGs concern themselves too much with immersion. The story and the gameplay just exist in completely separate bubbles and most of the creatures you fight make no sense at all . You're just supposed to accept that It Is A Video Game and you do Video Game Stuff in it
Semi-related tangent, but it amazes me that there's tons of Japanese media where they take all these weird video game systems, tropes and abstractions and make them explicit parts of the setting and narrative. Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s
make no sense at all
Is that Wild Arms?
EDIT:
Also
Semi-related tangent, but it amazes me that there's tons of Japanese media where they take all these weird video game systems, tropes and abstractions and make them explicit parts of the setting and narrative. Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s
I tried to watch Delicious in Dungeon because everyone talked it up so much and at one point in E1 the guy in plate armor started rambling about they didn't have enough money for food so maybe they could sell their weapons and armor and buy cheaper weapons and armor along with rations and I just immediately bounced hard off of it because of the "all goods including form fitting plate armor are totally fungible and you can get an equitable deal selling this equipment and also there is a shop that carries and sells swords, but not as good as regular swords, and charges less money for them"
I felt like I was watching a direct adaptation of Final Fantasy 1 or something.
I don't recognize those bosses, I assume they're from the first one (I only ever played 2 and 3) but the text box background and font are pretty recognizable.
Loved the science fantasy western setting they had, I don't think I've seen it anywhere else.
It is indeed the first game, but these are all just random monsters you run into in dungeons and the overworld. At least bosses tend to have some kind of story justification. The same criticism about the enemies you fight being kind of silly and random could easily be made of many classic franchises, like Final Fantasy. insert picture of the haunted house enemy from FF7 here
Loved the science fantasy western setting they had
I'm currently playing through the second game but I have to say that at least judging by the first two entries, despite the series' reputation as the "Western" JRPG franchise they're remarkably light on actual Western elements. Sure, there's some spaghetti Western flourishes to the music sometimes, some characters wear duster coats and the landscapes tend to be kind of arid but everything else is just regular JRPG stuff through and through. (Also plenty of JRPGs throw in random Western elements anyway)
Also with regards to your edit to your previous post, I think that's just because modern anime audiences and creators are more familiar with RPGs than they are with fantasy literature or the things that inspired fantasy literature
Sure, there's some spaghetti Western flourishes to the music sometimes, some characters wear duster coats and the landscapes tend to be kind of arid
Yeah but I like the dusters, deserts and Western musical flourishes.
I think the amount of guns in a not-modern setting makes it feel pretty Western to me also.
I also feel like some of the towns look really Western. Big metal windmills and water towers, saloony architecture etc.
This also doesn't apply to 2 obviously but this is the frontwoman for 3
Show
Look at those six-shooters.
So far 2 actually feels somewhat less like a Western than the first game. The first game had Jack:
Show
His jeans and the tassels on his coat contributed like 40% of that game's Western vibes. Funnily enough, he doesn't even use guns despite his special skill being named Fast Draw
I also feel like some of the towns look really Western. Big metal windmills and water towers, saloony architecture etc.
I feel like a ton of JRPGs have at least one town that looks like this
You’re just supposed to accept that It Is A Video Game and you do Video Game Stuff in it
I kinda think that this a big reason why the "Traditional JRPG" is a more-or-less extinct genre outside of the Persona series, and whatever weird remake, or "narrative experience" experiment SquareEnix is working on right now.
Most JRPG's never really figured out how to actually get their game-worlds & their gameplay to interact with each other in ways that are actually compelling in any way; and consequently they ended up kind of just stagnating & getting overtaken by more dynamic games.
Like these things were invented to help portray Lord of the Rings or Conan the Barbarian-esque adventures in pen-and-paper game form in the 70s
Yes, but you see Conan is not a fucking nerd, and is the furthest possible kind of subject from a Neoliberal Optimization Gremlin; and so his perspective is not relatable, or salient to anybody watching, or working on contemporary fantasy anime.
As a consequence of this, the modern audiences & creators plunder the systems meant to simulate things he would do or encounter, and then interject their own existing neoliberal value-sets on top of it in order to treat those systems & simulations as the "Actually Real" part; and then write shitty spiritually dead characters designed to thrive within that framework.
I kinda think that this a big reason why the “Traditional JRPG” is a more-or-less extinct genre outside of the Persona series, and whatever weird remake, or “narrative experience” experiment SquareEnix is working on right now.
i agree, only atlus (persona and smt dev/publisher) figured out how to make these games fun in this low attention span era. Theyve been on a roll, even the new franchise looks awesome, they even managed to make Yakuza a turn based jrpg and its awesome.
Yeah. Turn based yakuza was NOT in my life bingo card lol
Was fantastic though.
my hot take is that steal checks should be a timing/rhythm challenge in 90% of video games where they exist and any rolls regarding them should pertain to how tight the timing is
I think it depends on the game a lot. If the game has no other mechanics like that, it really shouldn't. If I'm just trying to relax with an oldschool style RPG, I don't want to have to suddenly focus on a timing minigame just for a single ability. Something like Lost Odyssey's ring system could be really good for this though, just holding down a button and then releasing it at the right time.
Final Fantasy and putting the Genji Gear on bosses the steal chance is like 1% off of.
The sad part is you don't even need all the fancy gear anyway since you're going to crush everything in your path regardless
you don't even need all the fancy gear anyway
uhhh why are you even playing a jrpg???
This is partly why FF9 was a terrible installment in the Final Fantasy franchise. Such a garbage thing to centre the game around and with zero innovation in this aspect.
At least 7 played around with a magic system and the way it interacted internally.
At least 8 changed the system for summons and stat boosts, despite being flawed.
Each of those were central to the story and the way the game played. What did 9 do? Uhhh... you have to steal. A lot. Also there's a job system except it's a pseudo-job system which is really anaemic. How thrilling!
First of all, I will not stand for this FF9 slander. It's my favourite or 2nd favourite behind FF7 depending on what phase of the moon you ask me. Seriously though, replaying and playing through classic turn-based JRPGs as an adult has led me to realise the underlying gameplay systems just suck in general. The games are all piss easy and there's basically zero skill or thought involved
I mostly just enjoy and evaluate them on aesthetics, music, characters and story. Someone should try making a classic JRPG but with the game mechanics replaced with something that's actually good
Someone should try making a classic JRPG but with the game mechanics replaced with something that's actually good
Gonna make Final Fantasy nerds mad, every time they try a new system that isn't just "select attack until you win, heal as needed" they get mad and claim that changing away from that system "dumbed it down" and "made it a mindless button mashing game" ironically.
My main issue with the action game mechanics is that it stops being an ensemble cast and turns into a story about one dude because turn-based is the only reasonable way to control an entire party
One thing I hate about a lot of classic Square JRPGs that you are strictly verboten from benching the designated anime boi hero. Let me run around town as Cid, Tifa or Red XIII you assholes
Yeah you either need the Chrono Trigger treatment or an ensemble cast like FF6.
Yeah, on reflection that was something they really got into with the PS1 games
I don't mind having a forced party if it makes sense for the story. I don't like it as much when it's enforced for no apparent reason
Honestly FFXII is probably my favourite because it successfully merged real time with party control through the gambit system. Tell 'em what to do and you just need to switch around the characters for a bit of fine tuning. Having to unlock the gambits was bullshit but apart from that I had no complaints.
FFXV did a great job of telling a four character story with action rpg mechanics.
But dis it do a good job of feeling like you were playing the whole party?
No lol it sucks so much that the other three boys are unplayable until you unlock them one by one on the skill tree. And that you can only momentarily play as them during a fight, after which you'll immediately switch back to Noctis. Noctis is the lamest one!
The devs couldn't even give us the decency of playing as them in comrades beyond one (1) mission. The only good mission.
The original release: absolutely not. Noctis is the clear protagonist and occupies 75% of the player's attention
With the DLC or in the Royal Edition: Noctis occupies about 30% of the player's attention. Each other party member gets their own lengthy side quest and returns to the main storyline as playable characters and with deeper motivations for their actions and contribution to the plot.
It's one of those games where they solved many of it's initial flaws way after the impression of the game was set in the public mindscape.
Yeah that's a pretty fair criticism. The last couple have felt that way.
Yeah but when JRPGs try to do something different, they usually end up with incredibly contrived and bizarre nonsense, like the Dressphere stuff from FFX-2 or the Paradigm system from FF13. What I'm saying is: make a Fallout 1/2 style CRPG that looks like Xenogears
I liked the Paradigm system.
My absolute favorite turn based combat system is in Star Renegades. Never been more engaged in video game combat without real time elements than in that one, unfortunately it's a roguelike.
You're looking for FFXV which pushed the limits of Final Fantasy innovation.
I liked that one a lot, though the latter half of the game felt a little rushed. It was pretty despised by a lot of old final fantasy fans though.
I mostly just enjoy and evaluate them on aesthetics, music, characters and story
9 has that in spades.
One thing that frustrated me with FFs starting at 12 was relative improvement to combat coming at the expense of more and more story beats. 15 was the worst offender, but it was all downhill after 10.
15 was the worst offender
I haven't played it but I struggle to imagine how it could be worse than FF13, a game that was nothing but a bunch of cutscenes strung along by narrow corridors
but it was all downhill after 10
Give me my guy running around on a big globe map representation of the game world or give me death
I know I say this like every time it's brought up, but I will reiterate yet again: FF13 is the ideal JRPG to play while drunk. The out-of-combat mechanics are "Hallway Simulator 2009." The in-combat mechanics are "mash these three buttons in this sequence, unless it's this slightly more annoying type of encounter, then use this other sequence instead." The rest of it is forgettable cutscenes where Snow yells a lot over his shitty nu-metal leitmotif, and the story is so incoherent that it wouldn't matter if you were sober anyway. Some people drink to forget; if you're playing FF13, you drink to not remember in the first place, and it's a better experience for it.
I haven't played it but I struggle to imagine how it could be worse than FF13, a game that was nothing but a bunch of cutscenes strung along by narrow corridors
For all its sins, FF13 was a complete story that closed its loops. Not a great story, but it at least had FF vibes and a dramatic ending.
FF15 just kinda gives up on itself in the middle of the game. You can tell the developers were throwing up their hands and announcing "We don't care anymore, just send it out the door".
A ton of story beats are littered across the first arc that just get dropped. A bunch of story beats are introduced at the top of the third arc seemingly so they can immediately be resolved.
The Act 2 final fight feels like someone cobbled together a God Of War quick time fight over a long weekend.
FF13 is consistently mid from end to end. FF15 drops straight off a cliff once you leave the main continent.
Give me my guy running around on a big globe map representation of the game world or give me death
Old ways are best ways
I don't understand. You're saying 12 improved combat at the expense of its story? And that 15 did that too? But 12's an autobattler that's all about political intrigue and 15's so trivial that it might as well be an autobattler (its story is a mess though, I agree).
But 12's an autobattler that's all about political intrigue
The gambit system was significantly more involved and allowed combat to proceed in near real time. Very stark change from 10.
Also, 12 had political intrigue as a backdrop, but it was all on rails. This wasn't Crusader Kings. Nothing you did influenced the outcome.
15's so trivial that it might as well be an autobattler
It ended up being button mashing in practice. But you had more real time control over the character than in any prior version. Much closer to a Zelda style of combat than a traditional FF.
(its story is a mess though, I agree).
The shift in gameplay was so stark they basically never finished the story. By the time you're in the third act, you can practically see the stage hands pulling ropes in the background. The dramatic, expansive open world they lay out in Act 1 collapsed into a few repetitive hallways and clumsy boss battles by the end.
All that so you could do a half assed implementation of Kingdom Hearts.
They even released a movie and an anime series to do world building! And it all got flushed down the drain by the end.
12 is linear with only one ending yeah, but its politics are remarkably grounded and well-integrated into its world. It's light on the crystal, magic, divinity stuff and heavy on the geopolitical. Out of all the FF games, Ivalice is the setting that's the most thought through imo.
Regarding 15, it's funny how the combat mechanics are most relevant in comrades where targeting weak points to break them actually matters. And this might just be how I played the game, but I didn't mind the shift toward the end. I got my fill of wandering, camping and questing before I set sail so the oppressive hallways came off as a purposeful artistic choice to set the tone. Like, the road trip has ended, the boys are in enemy territory, they're being obviously manipulated by Ardyn, and there's nothing they can do about it. The miserable way the boys are restrained into realizing the worst ending feels thematic.
The OVA and movie came out before the game released, didn't they? I'll admit, I liked them but I'm also a massive FFXV fan so that might be apologia.
The miserable way the boys are restrained into realizing the worst ending feels thematic.
I genuinely enjoyed the way the crew fractures and falls apart towards the end, only to have to come together despite themselves for the finale.
But it all happens in a rush, because they burned through their budget and squandered so much time/energy on the Act One overworld that ends up meaning nothing.
The better FF games tend to take you though the setting two or three times - first to set the stage, then to establish the stakes, and finally (in epilogue) to pay off the conclusion.
Because 15 wants to keep stringing out the world in Act 2 and 3, the stakes/pay off are heavily clipped. Lunafreya is built up enormously in Act 1 only for Act 2 to exist in what feels like a closet. By Act 3, she feels like an afterthought. And all the scene setting in Act 1 collapses by Act 3, because they never had time to properly mod the original continent into its "bad ending" failed state. All those side characters and places you met just vanish.
You never get that Golden Saucer moment - discovering the wonder, witnessing the seedy underbelly, and then finally watching it flounder in the face of calamity.
The OVA and movie came out before the game released, didn't they?
Yes. And (setting aside the fact the movie was mid) they felt very disjointed from the game itself.
I remember watching the Gungrave anime and genuinely enjoying how they morphed a Scarface-esque mob story into Sci-Fi bullet hell backstory. Was excited to see something like that.
Instead, it was this cheesy canned action-romance that mashed proper nouns in with a mush of noisy melodrama. The OVA was much better. But it sets up a bunch of story beats that the game barely explores.
Who thing feels like a Too Many Cooks situation.
I 100% agree that the game felt rushed at the end, particularly after the timeskip. I played the game totally blind so I didn't even know there was a timeskip and I got whiplash from the way Noctis just... goes to bed for a decade in a single cutscene. The boys are said to have gone their separate ways in the meantime, only regrouping occasionally, and I so badly want to know how that went down. FFXV is all about the boy band, the writers can't just leave out ten years of their character development like they can with everyone else!
Regarding Lunafreya, she feels like three different characters to me. In the movie, she's principled and courageous. In the book, she's preachy and won't shut up about Noctis. In the game, she hardly has any presence but whenever she is there, it's tropey as hell. She's a Damsel in Distress, Love Interest, Heroic Sacrifice, Precious Princess and it suuuuuucks. I agree that there were too many cooks because there's so much going on with her that surely the chefs had forgotten what they put in the pot as they were
burningcooking the script.More than anything though, I despise the "romance" between her and Noctis. They only ever met a few times as children and that was 12 years in the past by the time of the game! Their only communication has been passing notes and they haven't even managed to fill a single notebook since then! And they're both bad texters! Their union is a literal political marriage to unite the Lucis bloodline with that of the Oracle! And this marriage was decided for them at birth, by force! BY ARDYN!!! I can't express in words how much I fucking hate how the game ends with them kissing, how the game's logo is the pair of them together, how the book had the chance to take a different path but instead doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on this godawful ship for the true ending. Surely, surely the writers lost track of everything they wrote down?
Also, FFXV has acts? Haha to be honest I didn't even parse what happened until well after I finished the game. But the story isn't what drew me in anyway. The chemistry between the guys is what FFXV is all about and it's why I don't mind that everything else is pretty shit. If I were in charge, I'd've put even less effort on the plot in favor of more time with the group because it's sorely lacking in non-Noctis interactions. We the fans deserve to see more of the Gladi/Prompto, Gladi/Iggy, and Iggy/Prompto dynamic.
Someone should try making a classic JRPG but with the game mechanics replaced with something that's actually good
That sort of thinking is what got us in the mess we're in today, with everything being just shittier action game.
JRPGs were fine
Someone should try making a classic JRPG but with the game mechanics replaced with something that's actually good
Have you played Omori? It's not rocket science, but I thought the emotion system was fun to play with.
I beat ff9 as a stupid kid without ever stealing anything, it's only necessary if you're trying to 100%.
It's like arguing that maxing out Freya's dragon slayer move is a necessary mechanic. Sure, it'll make the optional super boss less annoying, but it's really not necessary.
In the same way that you can beat FFX without playing Blitzball (aside from half of a mandatory game) but my point isn't that you must do it, rather that it's central to the story and yet it's straight up tedious and completely lacking in any imagination.
I guess having more than one item available to steal was the major innovation in this respect?
Blitzball is a major aspect of FFXs story, but in FFIX stealing is just an option on a menu. I guess I agree that it's not a good mechanic but I disagree with the weight you put on it.
I mean, the protagonist is locked into a pseudo-class of thief, he is part of a troupe of thieves, and thieving is a motif throughout the game with you visiting the thieves' hideout, going to a city of thieves, the kidnapping of royalty and fighting against others to protect your loot etc. etc.
From my perspective you're underselling how thieving is central to the FF9 story by saying that it's simply one command in a battle menu.
It's a bit of a problem when most of the game's mechanics feel unnecessary
Stealing during combat was not nearly "most" lol, rest of the game was more or less fine.
I mean most of the deeper mechanics and content. It's just there for completionists
I would argue that grind for full completion is not even mechanics, it just fake content using the normal mechanics and maybe force you to minmax and run around really much.
Yup, this mechanic is EXACTLY what killed FF9 for me. I'll probably get around to finishing it one of these days, but I'm not going to be happy about it.
I like them when they act as a bonus way to get extra materials or extra chances to get materials in games that do that. Like you're trying to get 25 griffon ass feathers and each one can drop one feather but also they can be stolen, so you can have extra chances to get them if you're grinding for them.
But as the only random chance way to get unique items from bosses...yeah that rubs me the wrong way. How are you supposed to even know you have to do that in the first place. It's anti fun
I felt like it was put in to force players to buy the $15-20 game guide.
WTF was Square thinking putting a chest super early in Final Fantasy XII that shuts off a really sweet drop later on, and it's completely randomly placed, no warning. You just have to remember to skip this one chest. The whole series is riddled with random BS like this... even the original Mario RPG had a missable chest if you forget to jump on a Koopa head in one spot... and it's a place you visit multiple times. Bad design imo
Admittedly while I dislike all the steal mechanics you described (especially FOMO and having no damage/target dying) I really like the concept of stealing in games
It seems like the logical conclusion is to have no one-of-a-kind items be steal-based, just money and replaceable items, and bosses (short of the final boss) can give you early access to what will later be a normal resource or something like that.
I think it was in Final Fantasy 3 that you had to do this massive grind to get your thief level high enough to steal from bosses, and it turns out there's only 1 interesting item in the whole game that you get by stealing
My favorite is the games where if you don't use the stealing mechanic in just that one boss fight at just the right time you lose out on a substantial game element, like some major boon. I always miss that stuff unless I read a guide.
Not a turn-based JRPG, but Dragon's Dogma 2 I think nailed its steal mechanic. The skill is just a little yoink that can only happen when an enemy is staggered, but gets you an extra drop. The table is slightly different than actual drops, but you aren't getting unique equipment from stealing, and those drops can help with your forging or selling mats for money. Having a Thief in your party with Pilfer/Plunder and the grapple hook that can knock down enemies easy does give you more loot. Certain NPCs can also be stolen from once, but there's near 0 risk or test involved, it's just finding out who has what.
DD2 has so many interesting things and just a weirdo vision to it but lacks the polish to bring it together properly that someone like Fromsoft or Kojima would give it.
It feels like Baldurs Gate 3 if it had action combat instead of turnbased. But without the writing, level design and freedom that it deserves. I mean, it has the freedom but it doesn't give you enough creative options for solving quests in off the wall ways outside of a couple of them.
With that said, the weird way you can piece together the story through 3rd-hand info rather than being spoonfed it sometimes feels like archaeology and I really dig it.
Tfw you decide to use steal in a mid game boss only to realize that bosses carry unique items only obtainable by stealing and you already missed half the bosses in the game
btw does the new atlus game has this mechanic?
I like that bit in FF6 where you have to steal a guard's clothes for part of a quest. No opinion on stealing otherwise, I don't really obsess over getting every item.
