Current Events > How accurate is this take on JRPGs?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Doe posted...

To the topic tweet: cool character designs aren't enough to save JRPGs from the fact they're largely incredibly derivative and repetitive. If you feel like JRPGs 'fell off' it's probably because most entries into the genre have failed to do anything above the capability of the NES.

Look at how action games and platformers have evolved over time. Meanwhile, Dragon Quest 11 literally has the option to play the entire game as a SNES game.

A lot of the most beloved recent JRPGs do so practically in spite of their core jrpg-elements rather than because of them. EG, Persona 5.

Really? I feel like there have been many different variants of JRPGs within the past decade from "retro" turn based, to ATB to action RPG and settings have moved from traditional medieval fantasy to more magitek to outright modern settings (Yakuza like a dragon). And that's not counting sub-genres like Strategy RPGs. Meanwhile, it feels platformers have become even nicher than JRPGs with there being pretty much 0 new platformers these days besides several decade old IPs and it's indies that need to make up most of the slack.
Now action games have indeed evolved a lot but the more streamlined and cinematic experience focused evolution while certainly the most successful it's ever been as the current intrend isn't something all action fans wanted.

ArsGoetia posted...

idk shit about this character but being like 5% more cat than your average anime cat girl doesnt really cut the mustard in this circumstance
go full on digitigrade cat person or at least khajiiti or gtfo

That's not really 5% more. She has the nose of a cat, the facial proportions of a cat, compare the distance from her eyes, nose and mouth and they're pretty similar to a cat's, the snout of a cat, which means half of her face is protruding from her face, a tail and claws. Her face is fairly cat-like, the only difference is a bigger forehead and having hair.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/6/AALLlEAAE5jS.jpg

It's not really different from your examples from BoF. None of them have digitigrade feet, they're quiet literally human bodies with animal-like faces.

Doe posted...

This graph has always really bugged me because only the third one comes close to a 'furry'. Like, open up furaffinity. Those are furries. The 50% is a girl who still has 95% of the facial structure of a human.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/9/3/AAcZIZAAE5jF.jpg
This chart is more representative of the reality of furry art.

Ochette doesn't even register at a 2. She's not a furry.

She has all the traits associated with furry characters. She's not an anime cat girl because she doesn't have a human face with cat ears, in fact her designer specifically mentioned in the art book that she's not a "cat ear girl character".

HannibalBarca3 posted...

It's not really different from your examples from BoF.

It's very different because Ochette is literally a 1/8 character meanwhile in BoF the only human character in the entire series is Karn. Ryu "looks" human but he fights mostly by changing into his real forms.

Doe posted...

Only so many shooters are 'dudebro shooters' bit RPGs are more homogenous.

JPRGs were derivative of Wizardry and Ultima, and the entire *RPG genre has been a derivative of itself since.

They never stopped having those characters, nor was there ever a time where they were commonplace.

BlueAnnihilator posted...

nor was there ever a time where they were commonplace.

Now that's bs

GiftedACIII posted...

Really? I feel like there have been many different variants of JRPGs within the past decade from "retro" turn based, to ATB to action RPG and settings have moved from traditional medieval fantasy to more magitek to outright modern settings (Yakuza like a dragon)

Well, okay. Now we're running into another problem: how do we define RPGs? It is really one of the more nebulous terms in gaming. When we say action RPG, we can include Dark Souls in that category, but it's really questionable how much DNA and ancestry Dark Souls shares with Final Fantasy as a video game. Really Dark Souls is reaching further back to ADnD, its mechanics and aesthetics.

Based on the OP I imagine that tweeter's core representative of a JRPG is Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, not Dark Souls. In that definition of an RPG, a "party" is an inseparable component of the genre. I'd say a better name for this genre is "Four Dudes in a Row". Cuz isn't that what we're talking about, really. The OP is about what the four dudes in your row can look like. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is part of the Four Dudes in a Row genre.

For platformers, the number of them made is low, but the innovation in new ones are still great. Platforming naturally lends itself to dynamism and creativity and nuance. Four Dudes in a Row needs to be able to put four dudes in a row.

I'd say strategy RPGs are fair game to be claimed as a Four Dudes in a Row subgenre, because the dudes you're strategizing are typically important to you and selectable (eg Fire Emblem).

Doe posted...

Now we're running into another problem: how do we define RPGs?

Experience points. That's it.

Doe posted...

Well, okay. Now we're running into another problem: how do we define RPGs? It is really one of the more nebulous terms in gaming. When we say action RPG, we can include Dark Souls in that category, but it's really questionable how much DNA and ancestry Dark Souls shares with Final Fantasy as a video game. Really Dark Souls is reaching further back to ADnD, its mechanics and aesthetics.

Based on the OP I imagine that tweeter's core representative of a JRPG is Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy, not Dark Souls. In that definition of an RPG, a "party" is an inseparable component of the genre. I'd say a better name for this genre is "Four Dudes in a Row". Cuz isn't that what we're talking about, really. The OP is about what the four dudes in your row can look like. Yakuza: Like a Dragon is part of the Four Dudes in a Row genre.

For platformers, the number of them made is low, but the innovation in new ones are still great. Platforming naturally lends itself to dynamism and creativity and nuance. Four dudes in a row needs to be able to put four dudes in a row.

I'd say strategy RPGs are fair game to be claimed as a Four Dudes in a Row subgenre, because the dudes you're strategizing are typically important to you and selectable (eg Fire Emblem).

I was actually referring to stuff like kingdom hearts and nier. If you can tell me about a new big platformer that isn't indie I'd love to hear them.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Experience points. That's it.

That's clearly incongruous with what the tweeter is describing, though. Verrry broadly you may be onto something, but the OP is really describing the Four Dudes in a Row genre.

GiftedACIII posted...

If you can tell me about a new big platformer that isn't indie I'd love to hear them.

Sonic Frontier just got a huge DLC. Super Mario Wonder and Sonic Superstars come out at the end of this year. Yeah I know, all Mario and Sonic, but hey, the stuff they put out is good.

Doe posted...

Sonic Frontier just got a huge DLC.

And not decade+ old IPs either lol. I already play all of those.

GiftedACIII posted...

And not decade+ old IPs either lol. I already play all of those.

Ratchet and Clank, I guess, but that looks more like some sort of platformer-on-rails.

GiftedACIII posted...

And not decade+ old IPs either lol. I already play all of those.

Well IDK then sorry. Being real, most notable JRPGs are decade+ old IPs too, the question of innovation isn't new intellectual properties and concept art, but what any individual game brings to step up gameplay.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Ratchet and Clank, I guess, but that looks more like some sort of platformer-on-rails.

Ratchet and Clank is two decades old.

GiftedACIII posted...

Ratchet and Clank is two decades old.

The PS5 one isn't

Dunno about dropping off, but there's certainly less interesting token mascot characters in JRPGs now.

At least Persona games still have Koromaru, Teddy, and Morgana.

Ricemills posted...

Dunno about dropping off, but there's certainly less interesting token mascot characters in JRPGs now.

They've pretty much all devolved to "prettyboy and tits", yes. Sometimes without the prettyboy.

...now I want to play Seven Pirates again.

Doe posted...

Well IDK then sorry. Being real, most notable JRPGs are decade+ old IPs too, the question of innovation isn't new intellectual properties and concept art, but what any individual game brings to step up gameplay.

My bad. should've went with two decades old I guess. Nier and Xenoblade are 13, Bravely is 12, Etrian Odyssey is 16. There's the Octopath Traveler games which released during the Switch era. Otherwise fair, but I think JRPGs are actually more notable here in that they've gotten a boost to mainstream recognition in the past decade (examples, Persona, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, Nier, Yakuza, even DQ and nicher stuff like Rune Factory and Atelier) whereas platformers aren't as prominent as they used to be, and most of their IPs are older.

Questionmarktarius posted...

The PS5 one isn't

I said IPs.

GiftedACIII posted...

I said IPs.

New IPs are dead, all stillborn. AAA dev costs way too damn much to expect anything unrecognized to even come close to breaking even.

GiftedACIII posted...

I said IPs.

The last biggest new IP platformer is Skylanders.

There's also been a few one-offs like Sunset Overdrive but I already know you have some excuse as to why it doesn't count.

Questionmarktarius posted...

New IPs are dead, all stillborn. AAA dev costs way too damn much to expect anything unrecognized to even come close to breaking even.

Indeed. I do still see some new attempt at IPs for JRPGs via studios like Atlus, Square, and Nintendo though while platformers it's basically all gone. I can see that it's easier to make JRPGs though due to their lower budget and less need for performance/complex AI while platformers would still be expected to have better graphics and performance.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The last biggest new IP platformer is Skylanders.

There's also been a few one-offs like Sunset Overdrive but I already know you have some excuse as to why it doesn't count.

Yeah, Skylanders is something... but that's a bit scraping the bottom of the barrel at that point.
I'm not seeing sunset overdrive as a platformer in either its wikipedia or tvtropes page, nor on its gamefaqs page.

GiftedACIII posted...

I'm not seeing sunset overdrive as a platformer in either its wikipedia or tvtropes page, nor on its gamefaqs page.

Well it clearly is. Just skip around a few hours in. You get more points & more damage the more parkour you do without ever touching the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mndRrBKwJmI

I can't find it at the moment but after you get the air dash ability there's a line the character says "I didn't even have to check GameFAQs!"

It's pretty easy to see why they were a natural at Spider-Man games.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Well it clearly is. Just skip around a few hours in. You get more points & more damage the more parkour you do without ever touching the ground.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mndRrBKwJmI

I can't find it at the moment but after you get the air dash ability there's a line the character says "I didn't even have to check GameFAQs!"

It's pretty easy to see why they were a natural at Spider-Man games.

Hmm, that does look pretty interesting and does seem to be more jumping oriented than most but it does still seem to focus more on combat than platforming. I'd say it's more of an action-adventure game with platformer elements. Gives me a Dead Rising vibe.

not a very spicy take

theres a bunch of reasons the genre fell off, once its not mainstream you have to appeal to otakus and shitty people

Who knew the problem facing jrpgs was a lack of Fursonas and furbait characters. Thank you TC, you've saved the industry

UndefeatedGOAT posted...

not a very spicy take

theres a bunch of reasons the genre fell off, once its not mainstream you have to appeal to otakus and shitty people

lol did you read the tweet at all?

GiftedACIII posted...

lol did you read the tweet at all?

yes!

i mostly agree with it but its just a smaller piece of things, kimhari and fraan are good for world building

UndefeatedGOAT posted...

yes!

i mostly agree with it but its just a smaller piece of things, kimhari and fraan are good for world building

I'd think the genre falling off due to lack of furries is decently spicy. Unless you're a furry yourself?

GiftedACIII posted...

I'd think the genre falling off due to lack of furries is decently spicy. Unless you're a furry yourself?

i think interpreting their use of furry as internet furries instead of regular animal/human fantasy character would be.. skewing what theyre saying

going from kimhari and fraan to this modern chibi artstyle you see a lot makes things look like its for otakus

Duck boy mad that there's no furry waifus/husbandos, so they assume that the genre is dead

GiftedACIII posted...

I'd think the genre falling off due to lack of furries is decently spicy. Unless you're a furry yourself?

Don't think the comment is about furries specifically but Rather just lacking of interesting characters. We aren't getting any characters like Robo, Peco, Mallow, or Geno anymore either.

Turbam posted...

Duck boy mad that there's no furry waifus/husbandos, so they assume that the genre is dead

dropped off =/= dead genre. You can hold the opinion that the genre got less interesting while acknowledging it is still successful.

UndefeatedGOAT posted...

i think interpreting their use of furry as internet furries instead of regular animal/human fantasy character would be.. skewing what theyre saying

going from kimhari and fraan to this modern chibi artstyle you see a lot makes things look like its for otakus

I'm referring to those furries/anthro characters. I think they're pretty cool myself. My favorite concept in the Fire Emblem games are the animorph shapeshifters. I just haven't seen anyone lament the alleged lack of them until now. And otakus are generally considered fond of anthro characters as well anyway.

He's right, though there's a lot more going on than that. It's more like when JRPGs started getting lamer, having cheaper budgets and losing what made them fun, they also started to ape more modern anime aesthetic and everyone ended up becoming kawaii teenagers for about a decade.

I will say however that that's being shaken up in the last few years somewhat

MarcyWarcy posted...

He's right, though there's a lot more going on than that. It's more like when JRPGs started getting lamer, having cheaper budgets and losing what made them fun, they also started to ape more modern anime aesthetic and everyone ended up becoming kawaii teenagers for about a decade.

I will say however that that's being shaken up in the last few years somewhat

Not nearly enough.

The more I think about it the more I just really love Breath of Fire 5. There's no grandiose world threatening catastrophe. It's just Ryu escorting Nina outside of the caverns to get some fresh air so she doesn't choke to death on the dust. It's everything JRPGs should aspire to.

Too many damn clones of teens on the cusp of adulthood doing a bunch of generic shit because they have to defeat the evil empire or save the world from certain doom at the hands of God.

HannibalBarca3 posted...

That's not really 5% more. She has the nose of a cat, the facial proportions of a cat, compare the distance from her eyes, nose and mouth and they're pretty similar to a cat's, the snout of a cat, which means half of her face is protruding from her face, a tail and claws. Her face is fairly cat-like, the only difference is a bigger forehead and having hair.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/0/6/AALLlEAAE5jS.jpg

It's not really different from your examples from BoF. None of them have digitigrade feet, they're quiet literally human bodies with animal-like faces.

bro there is a pretty fuckin significant difference between this kind of catgirl:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/5/AAfc_TAAE5kX.jpg
and whatever loli nonsense this is
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/6/AAfc_TAAE5kY.jpg

ArsGoetia posted...

bro there is a pretty fuckin significant difference between this kind of catgirl:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/5/AAfc_TAAE5kX.jpg
and whatever loli nonsense this is
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/7/6/AAfc_TAAE5kY.jpg

The bottom one is AI generated crap and on top of that it's in anime style which means simplified features like lack of noses, or in this case, lack of a snout except for the side facing profile. There's a reason I used the figure because it puts her design in 3D space, which means her face is well defined, and on top of that it gives a good sense of how cat-like it is, I should mention again that the character designers put in the notes for the reference art used to model the figure, in underline and in quotations I may add, not to depict her as a "cat ear girl" character. Basically they didn't want her depicted like an anime cat girl. Depening if you value facial structure over most other traits, I think the cat-faced character counts over the human-faced one.

Second, I love Breath of Fire, but those designs aren't any more up to speed. Characters like Bow and Scias lack tails and have pretty human bodies with human feet and hands. In fact a lot of early JRPG kemono designs lacked tails, like in Shining Force too. Than most of the other ones are anime cat girl tier. The point I'm making is that those designs never really went away and truthfully using Breath of Fire which has similar type of designs while downplaying another doesn't really sit right here.

Tyranthraxus posted...

It's very different because Ochette is literally a 1/8 character meanwhile in BoF the only human character in the entire series is Karn. Ryu "looks" human but he fights mostly by changing into his real forms.

The point of the tweet is that these types of characters aren't being made anymore, not so much the quantity. Persona 5, Octopath Traveler 2, Xenoblade Chronicle, FF16 has a dog, the FF7 remake, Chained Echoes are JRPGs on top of my head that contain what the OP is asking for.

HannibalBarca3 posted...

The bottom one is AI generated crap

oh shit, AI finally figured out hands.

HannibalBarca3 posted...

The bottom one is AI generated crap

idk shit about this character it was just the first result for "ochette octopath" on google images

Second, I love Breath of Fire, but those designs aren't any more up to speed. Characters like Bow and Scias lack tails and have pretty human bodies with human feet and hands. In fact a lot of early JRPG kemono designs lacked tails, like in Shining Force too. Than most of the other ones are anime cat girl tier. The point I'm making is that those designs never really went away and truthfully using Breath of Fire which has similar type of designs while downplaying another doesn't really sit right here.

how tf are you going to look at this mf and say "nope, no tail, doesnt count"
he is literally an anthropomorphic bulldog
not a fuckin human with dog ears
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/2/2/AAfc_TAAE5lG.jpg

When did I say he didn't count? I'm pointing out that the criteria you set:

go full on digitigrade cat person or at least khajiiti or gtfo

Doesn't really apply to these designs either. Don't put words in my mouth, I never said Scias or Bow don't count, just that their design isn't all that crazy either. Most of the animal characters in BoF have human feet and hands, and total human bodies with animal-like heads and that's true. I'm not putting them down just stating facts.

On top of that I'm using official material and not just googling for fan art or posting AI art. If you want even further proof here's more official material which shows that her design isn't just a human with cat ears:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/5/0/AALLlEAAE5li.jpg
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/5/1/AALLlEAAE5lj.jpg

Here's also how the profile of the human characters looks like which is different:
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/5/2/AALLlEAAE5lk.jpg

HannibalBarca3 posted...

When did I say he didn't count? I'm pointing out that the criteria you set:
at least khajiiti or gtfo

khajiit are (mostly) bipedal humanoids with cat heads and fur over nearly their entire bodies
how does bow not meet that standard

and your "official" art doesnt really change anything
oh wow, she has a slightly feline nose
still a fuckin human with the majority of their body having bare skin and no fur, no claws/paws, etc.
bow literally has a dog head
katt is so furry she can go pantless and not be censored

this octopath chick is just generic modern anime slop

Shouldn't a cat have eight boobs?

ArsGoetia posted...

this octopath chick is just generic modern anime slop

I don't think we need to get heated or rude about it.

Doe posted...

I don't think we need to get heated or rude about it.

is she your sister or something

ArsGoetia posted...

is she your sister or something

I agree with you that she's not a furry, I just thought you came off as getting angry.

Doe posted...

I agree with you that she's not a furry, I just thought you came off as getting angry.

yea im hella mad

The best anthro cat ever is maybe 0.2% furry anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_(Red_Dwarf%29

ArsGoetia posted...

(mostly)

The first Elder Scrolls games are wild.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Shouldn't a cat have eight boobs?

Unless pregnant, not exactly.

ellis123 posted...

The first Elder Scrolls games are wild.

eso has some of the stranger khajiit forms, like talking housecat