Current Events > What's the genuine appeal of turn-based JRPGs?

(+) Yeah! (+)

You're effectively just cycling through menus and playing a convoluted Rock Paper Scissors.

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CRON posted...

You're effectively just cycling through menus and playing a convoluted Rock Paper Scissors.

https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c

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They're fun and a lot of the time have really good soundtracks as well

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FFX felt like a chess match, had to plan your moves ahead and shit.

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You can eat a sammich while playing.

That's an actual example someone gave years ago on the FFXV board as to why action combat sucks.

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Conflict posted...

What's the genuine appeal of Action JRPGs? You're just mindlessly mashing A

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i find it a lot more chill than action RPGs. plus i tend to be playing more for the story/characters than the engaging combat mechanics or whatever.

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I get a boner when I see big numbers. That's why I like JRPGs.

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I like seeing the magic spells and abilities casted or used by the characters.

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these days, I'm not really a fan of JRPGs, action, turn-based, and so on.

with the exception of Nier: Automata and maybe the Yakuza series.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake is also pretty good, IMO.

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some of them actually attempt to have enemies that are strong and require reaction and prediction
most don't and are pathetic, easy, and slow, though

Story and characters, and to a lesser extent worldbuilding, are the main draws of the JRPG genre. So naturally, you often want to have multiple party members participate in battle simultaneously. Turn-based combat is nice because it allows you to control all your party members directly instead of delegating their actions to notoriously stupid AI or deal with them killstealing the player. Since you control them all directly, too, you have more agency with the character itself, which is consistent with the main draw and concept.

Now a lot of them don't take full advantage of this and end up with a mindless attack attack attack attack strategy, but some are better than others. Child of Light and Mega Man X Command Mission had good combat systems and great bosses.

Sometimes it can actually be advantageous to have random battles be mindless. There's often overlap with dungeon crawler design, where the challenge is in the dungeon as a whole (managing resources, solving mazes, etc) rather than the individual conflict, and frankly, getting stopped and having to plot out and strategize while you're just trying to get through a maze is pretty annoying. See the Imperial capital dungeon in Baten Kaitos, for example. Now I would definitely insist this is just that dungeon crawler is a bad genre but I'm grateful that games that fall into that trap are content to make battles easy.

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weak bait

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Its a soap for teens and adults longing to feel like they did back in their teens.

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Strider102 posted...

You can eat a sammich while playing.

That's an actual example someone gave years ago on the FFXV board as to why action combat sucks.

lmao this made me crack up

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Fun

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Anime tiddies.

Strider102 posted...

You can eat a sammich while playing.

That's an actual example someone gave years ago on the FFXV board as to why action combat sucks.

I mean, honestly the ability to eat a sammy AND play the game is pretty nice ya know?

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Sometimes I just want to sit back, input some orders and watch it unfold

And then adjust strategy when the boss pulls out a big dick move I wasnt ready for

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I mean, honestly the ability to eat a sammy AND play the game is pretty nice ya know?

you could play earthbound with one hand.

Sometimes it can actually be advantageous to have random battles be mindless.

random encounters are tricky. i think if they serve to just pad out the game then they're misused, but easy, frequent fights in spots can add character to an area. if that becomes the tone of the entire game, it might end up just being annoying.

one idea i had was tune the encounter rate per room so that if the player takes the shortest path, they're unlikely to fight anything. because this was something i found myself doing in games with random encounters -- hoping i could skip having to fight anything in short rooms. i also see this as a way to add puzzles to rooms: find ways to trick the player into taking extra steps. i almost look at this as a slight qol idea too, for players that have already explored and looted or players that are working their way back out.

i also think having fewer encounters lets you make them more threatening and interesting.
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Pancake posted...

random encounters are tricky. i think if they serve to just pad out the game then they're misused, but easy, frequent fights in spots can add character to an area. if that becomes the tone of the entire game, it might end up just being annoying.

one idea i had was tune the encounter rate per room so that if the player takes the shortest path, they're unlikely to fight anything. because this was something i found myself doing in games with random encounters -- hoping i could skip having to fight anything in short rooms. i also see this as a way to add puzzles to rooms: find ways to trick the player into taking extra steps. i almost look at this as a slight qol idea too, for players that have already explored and looted or players that are working their way back out.

i also think having fewer encounters lets you make them more threatening and interesting.

I like the pokemon method. Have danger areas where you can encounter enemies and safe areas where you can't. So while you're working your way toward the objective, you can adjust the encounter rate however you want. If you avoid the tall grass as much as possible, you'll probably just get in two or three battles but if you play around in it, you get more experience to make the boss easier without just running back and forth.

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I get to play while snacking and smoking weed, its super chill and I grind and become a GOD! also if the storys good I like to read.

Conflict posted...

What's the genuine appeal of Action JRPGs? You're just mindlessly mashing A

Tales of vesperia has entered the chat

I like the pokemon method. Have danger areas where you can encounter enemies and safe areas where you can't.

it gives the player something of a bit of choice. i think if i had my way, tall grass would have a higher encounter rate than caves.

you know how dragon quest had those enemies that were obviously not meant to try and kill you, just waste your MP before you got to where you were going? that was kind of the worst.
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Same appeal as any other game I play: It's fun for me.

Not my concern if you disagree.

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Grinding relaxes me

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Pancake posted...

you could play earthbound with one hand.

i'm one-handed and play literally everything with one hand

i'm one-handed and play literally everything with one hand

that's cool. what i was getting at is that earthbound was designed that way; i think the R button let you confirm and check stuff and progress through menus in-battle.
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glassparkinglot posted...

Tales of vesperia has entered the chat

So has any game with an active time battle or grid-based battle system. The general point is you can make just about any RPG subgenre sound dull and unexciting if you oversimplify them

Giant overworlds and free roam rpgs are getting old to me

Lots of jrps cut out the middleman of travelling, and repetitive combat
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JRPGs....cutting out repetitive combat? What sort of turn-based JRPG doesn't have repetitive, grind-y combat?

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Personally, I don't miss it. The worst kind of fight is one in which opponents trade punches. If it's turn-based, you're stuck with nothing but trading punches (or fireballs or sword thrusts). Sure, it's possible to set a character up to block, but that basically means you're just forfeiting a turn.

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CRON posted...

JRPGs....cutting out repetitive combat? What sort of turn-based JRPG doesn't have repetitive, grind-y combat?

Literally every JRPG has repetitive combat. Every single one.

Some turn-based RPGs don't have random encounters. Which makes them essentially no different from Action RPGs.

I think I never get into JRPGs because I really don't give a fuck about the stories or settings. I never really liked anime. I can't make myself give a shit about the drama of Japanese high schoolers. There's nothing wrong with liking that stuff, but something about my upbringing has made me immune to whatever the appeal is.

I think if someone made a JRPG for me based off a universe I actually liked, I'd probably buy in. Something like a Mad Men JRPG would sell like a hundred copies, but I'd be first in line.

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You can have action RPGs with random encounters

Sure, it's possible to set a character up to block, but that basically means you're just forfeiting a turn.

i think blocking is only interesting if you can have some sort of tanking going on (ff4ds draw attacks), a cover/counter system, or if the game has survival rounds.

otherwise you'd only ever do it if there was no other way to get to other character's turns (like ff4 snes).
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CRON posted...

JRPGs....cutting out repetitive combat? What sort of turn-based JRPG doesn't have repetitive, grind-y combat?

Swinging around some heavy sword, clearing off map icons and the same ability tree in every game doesnt tickle my funny bone anymore

Death stranding broke that formula and the industry collectively hated on it

To me, ass creed, spiderman ps4, the witcher, etc etc are all the same game
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GoodOlJr posted...

Swinging around some heavy sword, clearing off map icons and the same ability tree in every game doesnt tickle my funny bone anymore

Death stranding broke that formula and the industry collectively hated on it

To me, ass creed, spiderman ps4, the witcher, etc etc are all the same game

That sounds like you just hating open-world games in general. None of the games you've mentioned are even RPGs besides The Witcher

One_Day_Remains posted...

That sounds like you just hating open-world games in general. None of the games you've mentioned are even RPGs besides The Witcher

You get what im getting at

I dont even play a huge variety of turn based rpgs, I almost exclusively play atlus/smt games
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You can still play them if you have carpal tunnel syndrome.
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The good ones make you actually think and strategizeabout your turns. In general the easier a turn based game is, the more boring it is. But if it's too difficult it's just frustrating.

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