The Internet's Top 5 JRPG Gripes

Following on from a post I made a few weeks ago defending the turn based element of JRPGs and why I feel they should never die ( http://dontteasetheoctopus.... I started to read articles pertaining mainly to the downfall of JRPGs and why they are losing favour in the West. Many writers and forum contributors have hypothesised over why and how they need to be fixed and how pretty much every other genre in gaming, particularly WRPGs, have left the JRPG floundering in their wake for a last gasp phoenix down, in an attempt to prevent them from being totally wiped out by the BioBethehemoth.

There are stats and commentary to back these claims up. PSM3 posted an article on Gamesradar back in March ( http://www.gamesradar.com/p... which told us that the Japanese software market has slumped a staggering 40% from 537 billion yen (£4 billion) to 326 billion yen (£2.5 billion) between 1997 and 2009. Whether this slump is solely down to one genre of Japanese games or the growth of the gaming market in other areas of the world is debatable. I lean towards the latter personally.

At one point the Japanese gaming market represented 50% of the global gaming market and enjoyed what many observers describe as a 'Golden Age' during the PS1 era. The thing is, Japanese developers, particularly JRPG developers, have for the most part, only ever made games they thought Japanese people would enjoy, a notion backed up by Hirokazu Hamamura, president of Enterbrain, the publisher of Famitsu, in a recent interview with Mark Cieslak of the BBC ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/...

"The Japanese don't like shooting and war games very much. They prefer playing in fantasy worlds and battling with swords. I think there is very little interest in fighting with guns and this sort of combat game."

Catering to the Western market has only recently become a major concern for Japanese publishers as gamers and critics alike round on the JRPG genre with accusations of 'Galapagosization', and undoubtedly, some of them haven't gone about making their Western move in the best way. Square Enix being a case in point. Acquiring Eidos was hypothetically, a masterstroke as they inherited two of the most recognisable brands in the Western gaming market in Tomb Raider and Hitman. Combining Square Enix's expertise in the cinematic and emotionally attached gaming experience with Eidos' successful IPs , on paper, was a fantastic match which would allow the Japanese publisher to gain a foothold in the Western gaming market. Mixing JRPGs and Western developers together though is a tricky balancing act.

Front Mission Evolved, a treasured Squaresoft licence from back in the day was handed over to Double Helix Games for development, why? Double Helix are an amalgamation of Shiny Entertainment and The Collective, Inc. who between them are responsible for some of my favourite games: Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Xbox, Earthworm Jim on SNES and MDK. However, were they well placed to take a traditional JRPG IP like Front Mission and er...evolve it? Well, despite good intentions and some nice ideas the reviewers would say no...( http://www.metacritic.com/g...

GRIN were also left out in the cold, allegedly, from this hybridisation of the lauded Square Enix IP and the Western development studio. They were rumoured to be working on a Final Fantasy XII spinoff called Fortress, as reported by Kotaku ( http://kotaku.com/5341365/g... and numerous other reputable sources shortly after GRIN went out of business in 2009. Again, allegedly, I must stress this because to my knowledge this speculation is nothing more than internet fodder and CV snooping, they were expecting a large sum of money for the development of this title but that it was taken back in house due to Square Enix issues with the quality. Why a Final Fantasy licence was given to anyone outside of the core SE development studio is anyone's guess, especially since it's one of the most successful Japanese titles in the West anyway.

Sufficed to say, it doens't make any sense to me as a fan of Japanese games, to have a Western studio develop titles which fall into that category of IP and it doens't ring true for the fans either, this is gripe #1. Look at the backlash Ninja Theory received ( http://www.escapistmagazine... when it came to light they would be developing the new Devil May Cry game. Great studio, one of the few that could probably pull this off but the fans remain extremely sceptical. This is one of the internet's few JRPG gripes I can get on board with, I wouldn't want Square Enix developing Mass Effect 3 and I wouldn't want BioWare developing FFXV. Fans of JRPGs and WRPGs appreciate the differences and enjoy each for their respective strengths. There's absolutely no need to mix them up.

Another thing that seems to piss gamers off about JRPGs are their 'cliched' storylines, gripe #2. The reluctant hero is apparently all of a sudden an alien concept to some people who presumably have grown up watching Terminator 2 on repeat to be deluded into thinking that all heroes love what they do. In many JRPG cases, you're a reluctant hero, thrown into the fray by circumstances outside of your control. A giantbomb.com blog post bemoaned this at length earlier this year ( http://www.giantbomb.com/pr... I think the thing people forget, all too often, is that this isn't a narrative device limited only to JRPGs. A reluctant hero is part and parcel of the monomyth and common to all kinds of narrative from various cultures all over the world since, well, forever.

Amnesia has become a dirty word in the JRPG despite the fact that Fallout: New Vegas uses it as a plot device as does Shadowrun from Australian developers, Beam Software for the SNES way back in 1993.

The hero's family being killed at an early age or the hero being the last of his kind for some reason in some JRPGs never happens in WRPGs because they're so cutting edge and fresh. *cough* Baldur's Gate *cough* Divinity 2.

Waking up one morning to discover you've come of age all of a sudden and were special for some reason with a duty to save the world never happened in Neverwinter Nights, or Dragon Age, or Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or countless other WRPGs of the same ilk did it? Actually it did so I get frustrated when I hear that JRPG storylines are cliched. Most game storylines are cliched to some extent, so sorry internet, but you're going to have to come up with a better reason for hating JRPG storylines. Here's a tip: they're too melodramatic. I'll give you that one.

So what else, ah yes, gripe #3: 'uh, how cum i can juz wlk in2 sum1s house and steal dere stuff an no1 says nuffin dats juz dumb. jprgs suck lolz lolz lolz lolz. wrpgs ftw.' I'm not going to dwell on the looting point too much because it's so ludicrous but FALLOUT! ELDER SCROLLS! NEVERWINTER! BALDUR'S GATE! ETC ETC ETC ETC to INFINITY! Not only will you nick people's stuff but you will become encumbered with some of the most pointless loot EVER seen in videogames! I loved all the above games, loved them, but would frequently have to clear my inventory of cups, plates, goblets and other pointless things that I had found in chests or people's houses.

Gripe #4 is a pretty obvious one and probably the only one I'm going to categorically agree with. Random battles. They're tired, they're annoying and dozens of JRPGs have shown us a better way of doing things by having the enemies on the map for you to engage and avoid at your leisure. Some would argue that without random battles, players won't be ready to engage some challenges further down the line as they won't be levelled up enough but I think games like Demon's Souls have shown us that gamers learn through dying. It's fairly obvious that if something wipes you easily, you'll need to go and level up before trying again.