Because you put things so eloquently and clearly enumerated I'm going to respond to your post to try and explain my own relationship to JRPGs. Also note that I do a lot of "JRPGs aren't the only games that do this." This is not me saying I think you're necessarily making a contrary claim (unless you explicitly state one). I'm just setting context. I want to play off your ideas without putting too many words in your mouth.Limewater wrote:I can't speak for others, but there are several things I enjoy about JRPGs
There is a certain truth to this, although western computer RPGs also had elements of this, assuming they didn't try to nip that directly in the bud at points (Wizardry is a real bitch about this, but the very popular Gold Box RPGs were pretty allowing, or at least some of them were). I know I struggled with a lot of PC RPGs, but with the Gold Box Champions of Krynn I really enjoyed leveling up and testing my mettle against enemies. I even figured out some save character cheats to equip starting level 1 characters with end-game equipment (including Dragonlances) and also how to import high-level characters. So basically I could NewGame+ without losing the cool stuff the game takes away at the end. But I also really liked that I could grind my way to victory in FF1 and FF2/IV. It wasn't until the Saturn era that I really became a bit disaffected with games that forced you to grind just to survive.1. They are comparatively easy. If I can't get past a section, I can just grind a bit and come back stronger. This means I am unlikely to just hit a wall and be unable to progress like might happen in a difficult game with limited continues.
This has become less of an issue with modern games, but was a big deal when games were frequently "Nintendo Hard".
I don't think this is unique to JRPGs at all, though JRPGs were often more straight-forward about it, at least on console. Step in the PC space and both western and JRPGs could be downright inscrutable at times. Might and Magic famously shipped with a hint book that was... cryptic at best. I did really like the sense of exploration-as-progression. The areas you can access scale carefully so you can progress through them, until you get some boat or flying thing that lets you explore more non-linearly, at which point you can take risks to grind in places you're not supposed to be and see enemies that will stomp you. That was always kind of fun. Whereas the western CRPG was more likely to throw you into the world and you assume all the risk, JRPGs tended to be more linear, and even when they open up they still put some guard rails on. And I actually liked this.2. Exploration. I enjoy exploring a world, seeing maps and continents and navigating. This mostly means adventure games and RPGs.
I don't agree with you that they had the deepest stories. They had the most character-based stories, whereas the western RPG was quite a bit more world-building. There was often quite a lot of depth in the world itself and how events play out, but your own characters were just so ancillary to the story itself except as these stoic forces for change. I know my response to FF2/IV was very much a case of "OMG, I'm Cecil, and the story involves me personally!"3. I tend to enjoy the stories. Particularly back in the eighties and nineties, these were the games with the deepest stories available.
Yup, this is a nice thing. RPGs are great for that. Action games your twitch skills for a particular title can really atrophy unless it's something you've just played a whole lot. For me, though, that enjoyment of grinding has a lot to do with how quickly I can knock out the grinding battles. Is the battle system too slow or complicated, or require too much input attention? Then it's probably out for me for grinding. I don't want something too simple, either. What I really like is a battle system that has complexity that's required/can be leveraged for boss fights and difficult battles, but also some simplicity so you can do away with grindmobs without having to tap into all that. Grandia's really good about that. When you're trying to grind you can be pretty lackadaisical in your approach to the easier encounters, but boss battles you can really dig into the meat of the system and sometimes even stunlock bosses for a bit.4. Clear sense of progress. Grinding and getting stronger can be fun, and when you see stat increases it's easy to see how you have progressed. This gives a dopamine hit. This is also progress that you won't lose if you can't play for a couple of weeks.
So in summary, I largely agree, though I also think many western-designed RPGs of the time on PCs reflected mostly the same sensibilities. For me, the experience of playing FF1 and FF2/IV largely hit the same dopamine spot that the SSI Gold Box games did. Now that I'm older I've gradually become a LOT pickier about what RPGs I want to play, and JRPGs of more modern design are a lot more likely to irritate me in ways that make it feel like the game isn't respecting my time with it. But when one does click with me I get right back into that place I did ages ago and it just sinks right into my brain.
I think I tried to watch Naruto once in Japanese+subtitles I just couldn't do it.
