Current Events > Why are JRPGs so text heavy even when they have nothing to say?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I'm playing SMT Devil Survivor and there was just a sequence of like 25 boxes of voiced dialogue where the characters painstakingly process what the player has already witnessed and surely pieced together, including a line where the girl literally does the "SO WHAT YOU'RE SAYING IS..." is trope.
I've never played a shooter or platformer where there's all this expository dialogue over going through warp pipes or shooting at targets.

And it's voiced so this stuff should cost more money based on how much dialogue is there. So why is it so bloated? Why can it take me 15 minutes to get to the tutorial for the actual gameplay?


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Ok

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Because they're made for children.

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I think it's a carryover from manga when they can't illustrate movement well so you have way too much dialogue explaining every action that occurs

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Persona 5 is the worst offender of this I've seen in a modern game. The 100 hour playtime it's known for sure ain't due to any deep, engrossing gameplay.

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because one of the staples of JRPGs is padding out the game as much as possible

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s0nicfan posted...

Because they're made for children.

Almost all games are, but this specific genre has a far bigger problem with text than others. The text I'm referring to isn't even explaining the gameplay (which actually leaves several mechanics unexplained like 'extra turn' and what your stats govern), it's just excessively reinforcing that demons exist. It's spinning its wheels.

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because they're real people to me damnit

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Because JRPGs are written by the worst writers. They embrace the worst bits of anime writing and can't even get that right. The writing is usually an afterthought because they think everything else will carry the game. And they're made for children.

Then they get translated into English.

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