Huge RPG rant. Read at your own risk. *opinion warning*

[marurun]

Why are so many of the defining characteristics of Japanese style RPGs also problems? How might we, and indeed how have they already, tried to fix these problems?*

*This is an editorial and laden with my opinions. I think that almost everyone will agree with at least one of the points I make even if you don't agree with all of them. Let's use these disagreements to open more dialogue about the future of this wonderful and unique genre.

The Japanese really like RPGs, including ours. It's possible that the Wizardry series has sold more games in Japan than here, as it received even Saturn and Playstation ports in Japan. But in the process of consuming our RPGs they started imposing their own ideas on the genre and created something new. The original NES Final Fantasy was actually somewhat consistent in play style with PC RPGs. The NES was less powerful than many computers of the time and Square was a relatively new company in the grand scheme of things so it's not surprising that the original Final Fantasy didn't really change any RPG conventions. What it did do, however, was reduce the RPG model to something that was easier for casual players to pick up and play, and in doing so it opened the genre to many new players.

So what are the elements we commonly see in modern Japanese-style RPGs?
(There are many many RPGs that break these molds, but most JRPGs rely on a number of these tropes for structure and entertainment value.)

The Level Grind:
Older RPGs were hard as hell, both in the US and in Japan. In JRPGs like early Final Fantasy games you had to wander around killing enemies to go up levels and buy the best equipment. The games almost seemed to be designed for you not to be anywhere near powerful or rich enough to suit up and move forward.
To combat this, newer JRPGs have been reducing the challenge level so you don't have to level grind nearly so much. This is a stupid fix as implemented as you'll read below. A better fix would be to keep the higher challenge provide by enemies and instead increase the speed at which players advance in levels. Also, having enemies gradually increase in challenge helps, rather than having the enemies in the next area by 3 times harder than the ones in the area before. Level ups are already fairly incremental at improving power, so have the enemies work the same way. Also, once the players are more powerful than the monsters in an area by a certain margin, have the enemies either run immediately or be slaughtered automatically. Level 30 characters shouldn't have to waste time in combat fighting level 1 imps just because they're there.

High Random Encounter Rates:
While a few games have made enemies visible or used other such tricks, in general the JRPG has a very high random encounter rate, meaning you have to fight a battle every few steps. Either that or levels are designed so you have to do lots of backtracking or footwork meaning more opportunities to have to fight a random battle.
More challenging battles take more time to fight and therefor you can have fewer of them and the players will still get the same amount of play time and, possibly, fun. High encounter rates are a bigger problem than almost any other in this list. There's nothing fun about fighting 6 wolves in a random encounter for the 25th frikkin time. Also, don't make us wander around huge, maze-like dungeons that look all the same. Wasting the player's time doesn't make the game fun. The Fire Emblem and Shining Force games really get around this. All the battles in those game are pre-defined and very challenging and those games manage to be just as much fun as other JRPGs.

Reduced Challenge Level:
Unfortunately, in reducing the challenge level to help mitigate the annoyance of the level grind, designers created a new set of problems. Usually encounter rates remain high, meaning instead of tensely fighting many hard battles and barely scraping by you fight dozens of meaningless battles with no challenge (or fun) whatsoever. Most JRPG battles can be won by simply selecting "Attack" repeatedly, even for the magic users. You don't want to waste those valuable MP you know you'll need to take on the boss.
Reducing encounter rates but keeping battle challenging is, again, the best solution to the level grind problem.

Items Items Items:
This entry has two parts. The first part was made famous by Final Fantasy. 99 potions! 99 HiPotions! 99 elixers! Not only are battles no longer very hard but your party can somehow still carry around 5 billion of everything with them. There's just something distracting about chugging 10 potions to get your health back up after a rare tough battle.
The second part has to do with weapon and armor upgrades. While there are unique items to be found in dungeons and from enemies (why the hell do beasts drop swords?), by and large each new town has a different metal or substance from which their equipment is made. While the town you started the game in can only seem to handle wooden swords and leather armor, the town a few miles down the coast seems to have mastered iron. One more town away and suddenly they have enough high-quality steel to woo even the most affluent traveler in the first town. Don't any of these towns trade with each other? And who the hell do they sell weapons to? Your characters are apparently the only fools who buy them.
Item and carrying limits are really a must, or some reasonable explanation must be given for why you can carry the stock of an entire shopping mall with you. Furthermore, make more of the powerful weapons and armors available at earlier towns. Use higher prices to keep players from buying them right off the bat. Naturally, this works best when the encounter rates are lower and the challenge level is a little higher.

Cut Scenes:
Games are getting better about letting people skip cut scenes, but still, they can be quite obnoxious. In some JRPGs they work, but in many cases they are used poorly and disrupt the flow of the game more than furthering the story. Cut scenes should be kept short and only be used where they truly further the experience. Don't just throw animation or CG at something because it's cool.

Over the Top Spells and Attacks:
Another 2-parter. First, there's nothing cooler than seeing flash and flair when an incredible blow lands, but when all of your abilities produce lights and flashes and sparks and fireworks all the joy of it evaporates. Not only that but Final Fantasy VII was notorious for making you wait through cut scenes when using certain spells and special attacks.
Second, why is there a planet left? Square is most guilty, but other companies also share the blame. If your attack just created an explosion large enough to blow off half the planet, why did the enemy only take 1000 HP damage and still manage to survive the attack? Every squirrel and bird within 100 miles is surely dead but the monster you are facing is unscathed.
How do you fix this? Less flash and flare except on the big attacks. Slowly scale up the fireworks. The big attacks will look cool by comparison. Also, keep a sense of perspective, people. You don't need to make players think they have to destroy the continent to make a dent in the enemies.

Enemies That Don't Belong/Are Non-Threatening:
Just about every JRPG I've played has this problem. Where could these monsters possibly fit into the ecosystem? Why are they where you found them? Some enemies seem to fit their environments, maybe seeming like they belong in caves or forests, but the rest seem completely out of place and have no organic relationship to the environment. Furthermore, many enemies seem completely farcical and non-threatening. What the hell is a Greasemonk, why am I fighting it, and why did it just throw a wrench at me? It looks rather like a harmless hunchback yet for some reason when it attacks me it hurts. I want to get into battles. I want the enemies to look harmful and wild and threatening. No more robotic yo-yos, dammit!
Panzer Dragoon Saga is the best example of how to make this work. The enemies all had a reason for being there. Many of them were wild creatures and they seemed to fit their environs. Some were abominations, but they all were there for a reason or with a purpose. Enemy design should not be divorced from world design. The two should go together as a holistic, organic process.

Do Swords Really Damage WarMechs?:
WTF is it with super technological sky worlds, or with people still using swords when there are cars and technology, or with swords that have GUNS in them!? I betcha if I took a broadsword to a tank I'd make a little dent. Then I'd get run over, or shot by the anti-personnel gunner. And no, my plate mail wouldn't help against either of them. Weapons should be environment appropriate, people.
Phantasy Star got this right. Swords are actually energy blades and are therefore technically technological. See? There ARE ways to eat your cake and have it, too.

Look Ma, I Can Do Everything!:
In the modern JRPG, every character can do everything. Some can do things better than others, but given the lack of challenge laid out before you this doesn't matter. This problem has many forms. In some games you can continually change character classes and slowly acquire abilities, or switch back and forth between them. In others you have a set "class" but every character is balanced so that they have some measure of physical combat ability, magic, and healing. Another manifestation is one Square is famous for, and Espers from FF3/FFIVj are the best example. Basically, by equipping and fighting with Espers, any character can acquire any spell. Sure, some spells do more damage based on a particular character's stats, but there are lots of spells that just work. Why have the magic user do all the grunt work when you can give every useful spell to every character in your party? Not only does this totally negate the point of even having differences between characters, it also removes a lot of the strategy from combat.
The only way to fix this problem is to make sure characters are differentiated, and not just a little bit. Characters strengths and weaknesses should be pronounced, and those characters that can do everything should be mediocre at best at all those things. Final Fantasy 1 got this one right. All the characters were very different, and the red mage, while incredibly useful at the beginning, became so much spare baggage due to the mediocrity of being a jack of all trades later in the game. OK, so there might have been a slightly better way to handle the red mage than making him as useless as that at the end of the game, but the thought is there, and it worked better than most more recent solutions.
Grandia also had a neat solution to this. You could equip elements and learn spells from them, but the spells were different to match the character's focus. Justin could learn many damaging attack spells while Sue mostly learned healing and support spells. If Sue equipped fire she was going to learn a few damaging spells but not the best ones. Justin would get a lot more out of it.

Dialogue Hell:
Let me start by saying I have no objection to reading text. I do object to having to read it line by line. If several characters have a long chain of dialogue, give it to me all at once. It's harder and more frustrating to read a line at a time and keep hitting the button to get through it.
Make character dialogue display in larger blocks, with the different characters' words marked as such. Don't make players wait for each line. That way there are fewer button presses and dialogue can be taken at a more brisk pace when necessary. The opportunity to watch little polygon faces make expressions with the emotional impact of each line just isn't worth it.

Choices With No Impact:
"So, do you want to go?" <Yes / No> "Oh, please go!" <Yes / No> "Come on, let's go!" <Yes / No> "Come on, let's go!"<Yes / No> "Great! See you there!" ... WTF? Why give me a choice when you're going to hound me into what the story wants, anyway? This is almost as bad as giving you three choices that elicit different dialogue but the same damn in-game effect. This is stupid. The illusion of interactivity is not a substitute for interactivity.
How to fix? Either remove it altogether or ensure that players are only given choices when there are measurable differences. Not subtle differences. Measurable.

Mini-Games:
I have no problem with making mini-games available to players and even offering them rewards for doing well. The problem arises when I am forced to play one in order to advance in the game. I don't want to have to learn a completely new game mechanic for one stupid little advancement point, because if I hate the mechanic and don't want to every play the mini-game again the developers have wasted my time making me learn it.
People should have the option of introducing this kind of variety into their game, but it shouldn't be forced down their throat.

50 Hours and Still Running Strong:
Chances are even the best JRPG development house can't pack 50 hours of meaningful content into a game. This means that your 60+ hour JRPG is probably actually 5 - 15 hours of actual entertainment padded with 45 hours of cut scenes, line by line dialogue, easy but frequent battles, and enough wandering around empty, wasted map space to make your brain start rotting in your head. Longer games are not better. They're just longer. The longer they are, usually the more worthless filler they are packed with. Not always, but usually.
Panzer Dragoon Saga is an example of a game that bucked this trend. It was short and sweet and entertaining all the way through.

I know this extended rant makes me sound bitter. In a way I am. I just don't enjoy many JRPGs the way I used to and it's because of these reasons. I really think the future of RPGs needs to focus on the intensity of the experience rather than the length. I still like RPGs and I want to keep playing them, but I feel like many of these games are simply trying to waste my time instead of letting me have fun. The game experience has become so rote and mindless. It's clear most JRPGs are designed by people who have been making and playing RPGs for years. They are certainly not designed to pull new players into the genre.

[marurun]

Wow, I have apparently ranted everyone into abject silence on this topic. Shameful... I guess I should go hide under a rock now, eh? ;)

[Pullmyfinger]

I get your drift man, much of what you said is why I stopped playing RPGs, I do like them, played a lot of them when I was 13-18, but then I just didn't have the time or the patience to do so.

You forgot about saving, like those games that don't let you save in dungeons, like when you've been 2 hours in a 20 floor dungeon and suddenly you have to go. You either throw away all the time you spent or not enjoy playing at all because you need to go.

Also all those battle intros and outros, first 10 times you see an imp roar is fun, but after that it gets annoying, hardly any games have options to remove battle animations (pokemon is the only one I can think of that did).

That's why I'm back to good ol' shooters, puzzlers, beatemups and platformers now

[Gamerforlife]

I have an appreciation for japanese rpgs, but I haven't played nearly as many as some people. The reason is because many of the things you mentioned eventually get on my nerves. This is why I'll often take a long break from rpgs, then suddenly I'll get into them again and play one or two in succession. I like rpgs, but I can only take so much at a time because too many of them stick by the same playbook. However, some rpgs do look for ways to get around many of the genre's usual cliches, and they tend to be my favorite ones.

Here's my thoughts on some of your points. I think level grinding is indeed a problem for many rpgs. Fortunately though, some rpgs reward strategy over levels. I think all rpgs should be like this. There are known cases of players finishing Final Fantasy games at ridiculously low levels, or beating FF X without using the sphere grid. How? Proper strategy and preparation. The reason many people seem to level grind their way through rpgs is because they never actually figure out some of the useful strategies that can be employed against their enemies, so they just use brute force a.k.a high levels. However, if you learn to exploit enemy weaknesses or combine certain items for useful effects, some rpgs don't require level grinding. Also, there are some rpgs where mastery of the combat system matters more than your levels. The Grandia games come to mind. Grandia is all about delaying your enemy's action by using the right moves at the right time or exploiting party combo attacks. I loved playing Grandia 1 and 2 because I never needed to level grind. I just learned how to stop my enemies from getting attacks in.

Random encounters are stupid. That's all I've got to say about that. It is better to let players see the enemy and avoid it. However, many rpgs that take this approach fill an area with tons of enemies and make it hard to avoid them. Final Fantasy 12 handled this perfectly. In that game enemies were an organic part of the environment. They didn't just magically appear on an otherwise empty map like in other rpgs. Engaging an enemy did not whisk you away to some weird parallel dimension to fight your foes before dumping you back on an empty world map. I also love how FF12 allowed you to run from battle ANYTIME YOU WANTED, unlike most rpgs where it's a random chance. FF12 had a much more realistic approach to combat that I enjoyed. You could ambush enemies, run from them, you could even wear down an enemy, run away, heal and come back to finish him off. Combat was always optional and handled in a realistic manner.

FF12 also handled the challenge problem well. Avoid too many battles and you'd of course be too weak. Many of the game's bosses were very powerful so you paid the price for avoiding combat constantly. One brilliant thing FF12 did was have different enemies of different levels in each area. If you felt the wolves you were killing were too weak or you had simply level grinded too much, you go and get the attention of that T-Rex or wherewolf and then find yourself reloading your game shortly afterword. Lots of great optional enemies you could uncover in practically EVERY area of the game too, in addition to optional bosses. FF12 always had something challenging for gamers, but the nature of the combat system and the freedom it allowed gamers kept things mostly fair. For all the flack FF12 gets from some gamers it did some things very intelligently.

I do think Cutscenes are overused, but as you mentioned it's not so bad if they are skippable. Xenosaga is notorious for its fifty thousand cutscenes, but to their credit, you could skip every single one. That's smart. If every rpg did that, I wouldn't complain. Nothing more annoying than having to re-watch the same stupid scene every time a boss kills you, particulary if someone is watching you play. It's stuff like that that makes non-gamers think games are stupid. "Didn't we see this scene already, that's kind of stupid"to which my replay can only be, "well yeah, it kind of is"

Yes, attacks in rpgs have gotten VERY ridiculous and over the top, and I think Square is mostly to blame. FF 7 set an example that many people followed. Though in all honesty, many rpgs are anime inspired, and we all know how ridiculous and over the top anime can be. Generally, anime is more concerned with style than realism so blame that for its influence on rpgs. Scaling things up and keeping it somewhat realistic as you said is a good idea. Here's the funny thing though, FF12 took a mostly no frills approach with attacks and magic, even the quickenings were tame by FF standards. Oddly enough, I actually found myself missing some of the insanity from previous FF games. I think like you implied, doing it in moderation is good. Crazy over the top attacks do seem to be much more appropriate in games like Disgaea, since nothing about the game is meant to be taken seriously

I LOVE your comments about rpg ecosystems. You know if real life was like an rpg, you couldn't leave your house. You'd get attacked by the bugs(who would be as big as you), the stray dogs, the birds. In the world of rpgs, EVERY LIVING THING HATES YOU!!. Your job is apparently to destroy all wildlife. I remember in Skies of Arcadia when you would discover a rare, never before seen creature, Vyse's reaction was always, "let's kill it!"

As for your paragraph entitled Do Swords Really Damage WarMechs? Well, it's called marketing. Annoying, yes I know. It's the same reason you see Auron from Final Fantasy fighting alongside Mickey Mouse in a Kingdom Hearts game. Innappropriate? Yes. Not believable? Yes. Will it sell lots of copies? Oh hell yes!

Choice with no impact? That's more of a japanese rpg problem. Play Star Wars:Knights of the Old Republic or Jade Empire and you won't be complaining about that.

Mini-Games. Here's something that Square tends to annoy me with. It's fine that they're there, but when I have to beat a badly designed, luck-based, stupid chocobo race with a near impossible time to get a PIECE of Tidus' ultimate weapon, that makes me angry. The biggest problem with mini-games in rpgs, is that rpg designers don't know how to make good mini-games. Sure, there are exceptions, but usually they're horrible. On the other hand, platform game designers like Sucker Punch and Insomniac have lots of fun mini-games in their titles. This just isn't something rpg designers are skilled at.

Rpgs too long? Now and days, this a problem with ALL modern games. One of the reasons I enjoy retro gaming. Blame game critics, they have all this stupid criteria that all games must abide by to get good reviews. Games must be really long, and they must have an online component, and other stupid things I could mention. Critics are ruining the game industry

[marurun]

I think I agree. If you scale down the over-the-top attacks too much you will start to miss the special effects. I suppose there's a balance.

And as for your comment on Swords Vs WarMech, I understand that it's marketing, and frankly, most RPGs do just fine with swords, but there are a few instances where it does seem odd for you to be swinging around a saber (FFVII *ahem) when there are frikkin machine guns available. I don't even mind Auron and Mickey Mouse together. It IS a fantasy game, after all. That sorta thing is more a stylistic choice, I guess. And can someone explain to me exactly how a gunblade works without making my eyes roll back in my head?

I did go awfully hard on random encounters. I don't mind them when they are reasonable, but sometimes they're every other step. Take Breath of Fire I & II and Skies of Arcadia on the DC. Holy crap-gasm, Batman!

I'm glad you appreciated the RPG ecosystems nod. That said, I don't mind every environment being hostile and hosting dozens of different varieties of hostile monsters, but finding robots wandering the plains is a bit off. They can be big and mean and numerous as long as they make some kind of sense.

Anyway, it's nice to finally get a little feedback on this rant. I guess I really did need to *bump* it once.

[Gamerforlife]

A rant like this is good to have on occasion because japanese rpgs do tend to get a little too complacent, and it often seems like everyone copies everyone else and when an rpg comes out that has some really minor, barely worth mentioning innovation it gets all this critical acclaim. That's how desperate people are for change in this genre

For the record, I kind of like the Kingdom Hearts games despite my earlier comment. I always found the use of Square characters questionable though, as it seemed like an odd pairing and I thought a game with Disney would have sold well enough without Square cameos. It just kind of felt like Square selling out a bit. I got the same vibe from FF X 2. With FF 12 though, it's like Square was finaly taking its bread and butter franchise seriously again

I'll admit though, they did a better job with the FF cameos in KH 2. Unlike the first game, the square characters were a bit truer to their original counterparts whereas in the first KH the cameos seemed to have little connection to their original FF incarnations. I mean why were all the FF X characters kids? Why did Squall's story have NOTHING to do with FF8?Stuff like that annoyed me, but in KH 2 Auron was really Auron and his story in the world of Hercules actually somewhat made sense. Nice that they played up Cloud's original FF7 storyline a bit more too

Guess I've taken things a bit off topic now

[Chrononaut]

These problems you describe mostly apply to console RPGs (especially Japanese ones). For those games, you just have to try to forget that they don't make much sense, and enjoy them for what they are.

On the other hand, there are many good computer RPGs which have (almost) none of these flaws. Including all of the Bioware and Black Isle games. Try Planescape Torment if you haven't..

[Mozgus]

Nice bump. Never noticed it. I agree with it 100% and the world suddenly feels less lonely.

[marurun]

Chrononaut,

I have played some great PC RPGs. But I do also enjoy some jRPGs. I guess what frustrates me the most is that jRPGs have potential, but it seems they ultimately cave and make compromises that are problematic. But the fact is, there are indeed some great jRPGs out there, my rant nonwithstanding.

Mozgus,
We don't always see eye to eye on things, but I kinda had a feeling you'd at least be down with some of the ran :)

[arion]

i couldn agree more

if i might add Jrpgs with random dungeon generators arent good at all !! it´s just lazy programming