JRPGs
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The spoils of Atlus RPGs
In his weekly column, writer Bob Mackey will alternate between two of his passions: the Japanese RPG genre and classic games. In recent years, Atlus' string of portable-bound RPG remakes has done an excellent job of showing off the developer's history with video games before the breakout success of Persona. Yes, if you're the type of person inclined to read a column dedicated to Japanese RPGs, you might be thinking, "Breakout success? But I've loved Atlus for years!" If that's true, then you probably remember an ugly past, making mandatory reservations thanks to the tiny quantities of Atlus games that once trickled into your local Gamestop – if they did at all – and the wallet-destroying eBay markups greeting those who didn't go to Herculean lengths just to buy a retail product. As a result of the developer's growing fame, we're now seeing the release of games we only dreamed about playing in the 90s, and Atlus has tried their best to replicate the experiences we would have had back then – for better or worse.%Gallery-185385%
At long last, Fire Emblem and Etrian Odyssey can be recommended to the mainstream
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. The average first-time experience with an Etrian Odyssey game goes something like this: You spend some time constructing a team; you venture into the forest for the first time, and you die. Then, unless you're a particular breed of RPG fan, you probably quit forever. Until now, anyway.After three games worth of trial and error, Etrian Odyssey IV seems to have hit the 'Goldilocks Zone' of RPG difficulty. In other words, it's still pretty tough, but it's not impossible. And for that reason, it's finally reached the point where I can reasonably recommend it to someone other than a hardcore dungeon crawler fanatic.The crux of EOIV's new accessibility is its casual mode, which makes it to the second high-profile 3DS RPG this year to feature such an option (Fire Emblem: Awakening was the first). The effects are relatively simple: when you die, you'll be whisked back to town, rather than having to start over. In addition, you will be blessed with an item that lets you leave a dungeon at any time.This would seem to have the effect of making EOIV a tad too easy; but in reality, it makes it compulsive. Rather than getting frustrated by every cheap death and accidental counter with an F.O.E. – minibosses that roam the labyrinth – I've found myself simply rolling up my sleeves and trying again. The result has been much more rapid progress than I've ever experienced before, and a whole lot less in the way of cursing and throwing my 3DS.
Three interesting trends found in 2012's JRPGs
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. As both a columnist and a fan, I've felt relatively lucky this a year with plenty of JRPGs to play and enjoy in 2012, including Persona 4 Golden, Xenoblade Chronicles, and The Last Story.I'm not exactly drowning in RPGs or anything, but this is probably the happiest I've been since 2008 or so, which was the year I discovered Valkyria Chronicles. I don't want to say that there was something for everyone, because it's a lousy cliché, and not really true either. But for those who were willing to look, it was a good year.Is this the beginning of a return to form for Japanese developers? Well, maybe not. The accelerated growth of mobile gaming, an aging population back home, and outsized budgets are all substantial obstacles for Japanese studios. But a few interesting trends are taking hold that could have a substantial impact on the industry in the near future:
How RPGs can avoid descending into early game hell
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. Whenever I want to get in some quality procrastination, I turn to one of two sources. Either I while away the hours messing around with my team on Pokemon Online, or I start hitting "random" on Television Tropes & Idioms. The other day, I went in for the latter, and I came across an article titled "Early Game Hell."Early Game Hell, as you might imagine, refers to games that are really difficult at the outset, but eventually get easier. Fire Emblem, for example, is even tougher than usual in the early going due to the main characters' lack of hit points and skills. In fact, almost every entry in the Early Game Hell page is an RPG. That's not exactly a surprise – every fan has struggled through the early game of an RPG at least once. But I also wonder if an RPG can't be entertaining and deep without being excruciatingly difficult to get into.To wit, as you may recall from my previous entry, I'm currently playing Persona 4 Golden – an RPG that is well-known for being a slow starter. It's a good 90 minutes before anything of note occurs; and when the action finally arrives, it doesn't pull any punches. For the unprepared, the Avenger Knight mini-boss is quite capable of knocking out the main character in one or two hits. And without the Fox to offer any meaningful healing, it's not easy to grind.%Gallery-165800%
Persona 4 Golden takes an interesting page from Dark Souls
This is a column by Kat Bailey dedicated to the analysis of the once beloved Japanese RPG sub-genre. Tune in every Wednesday for thoughts on white-haired villains, giant robots, Infinity+1 swords, and everything else the wonderful world of JRPGs has to offer. It's always around the month of May that I take a look at the lengthy list of daily decisions in Persona 4 and start to sweat a bit."Should I be going to the sports club so much? Shouldn't I be building my relationship with Yukiko?""Crap, I forgot to buy a book to read.""Exams are coming up and I still haven't hit the first Knowledge threshold. I'm screwed."More than most RPGs, Persona 4 is about the long game. It's set over the course of a full Japanese school year – from April to December – and there are important decisions to be made almost every day. Most of the time, you end up hanging out with various non-player characters, some of whom won't become friendly until you get to know a specific character. It's big, complicated, and stressful.%Gallery-167418%
Ghostlight looking to bring JRPGs from console to PC
Ghostlight is a UK publisher that's known for its adaptations of Japanese games (specifically JRPGs). Last week it asked readers of its official blog if there was any interest in seeing Ghostlight bring some JRPGs from Japanese consoles to PC. The interest was apparently high, because this week's blog post says Ghostlight is planning on doing exactly that.There aren't a lot of details yet, but Ghostlight says talks are underway, and while the original plans were to just release these games digitally, fan response has got the company thinking about boxed copies of these translated games as well.
What makes JRPGs worth playing
This is a column by Jason Schreier dedicated to the analysis (and occasional mocking) of his favorite genre, the Japanese role-playing game. Whether it's because they're too antiquated or just too niche, he believes JRPGs don't get enough attention in the gaming industry today. It's time to change that. It's easy to think of a role-playing game as an amalgamation of two main components, narrative and gameplay, jammed together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes they fit together nicely; other times they're as awkward and frustrating as that one weirdly-shaped Tetris block that always falls into the gap where you need an L. I'm sure you've seen the message board posts. Declarations like "well, the mechanics are OK but the story is great" or "the characters suck but I love the combat" are frequently dropped everywhere from NeoGAF to GameFAQs. Gamers have this tendency to turn games into mathematical equations, breaking them into lists of components like "presentation" and "mechanics" and judging each one on its own merits. The problem with this attitude is that it ignores everything that makes Japanese role-playing games great. When you cut a JRPG into sections, it is resoundingly subpar. Books have better stories. Platformers have more engaging mechanics. Movies have much more elegant presentation. So why do we play JRPGs? Because the good ones are better than the sum of their parts.
