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The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

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Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#31

Post by anyfoo »

angarg12 wrote: post #6

Sometimes I play retro games, and I feel like nostalgia makes us excuse what is plain bad design. I have that feeling every time I play an old JRPG. Many of them feel slow, clunky, with painful mechanics... as opposed to current games, which had the experience from decades to get refined. The argument in favour of this is that the bad and boring parts make the good bits even better, in a sort of stoic way, they feel…

That resonates well with me. Unlike in my childhood, playing and replaying JRPGs in my late 20s felt like such a chore, and the often pastiche storytelling felt so distant, that I actually thought that I outgrew games in general up into my early 30s. In reality, it was just JRPGs that I outgrew, but me erroneously thinking that they would be "reference points" of good games led to wrong conclusions.

I got over it with newer games, and nowadays my Switch gets a lot of use.

Another thing that I realized, maybe related through my acceptance of not liking JRPGs very much anymore, was that I also actually just don't enjoy NES era games. I think I did at the time, but nowadays they are just too simple in structure, and too "arcade-y" in gameplay. Even allowing for the fact that I'm probably getting too old to be any good at that kind of "twitchy" games, I'm pretty sure that even if I was any good, the payout would still be disappointing. I think it's around the SNES-era that games get potentially interesting for me.

There are some exceptions like Link's Awakening on the Game Boy, but that always felt much more like an SNES-era game, and in fact it came out a year after SNES's A Link to the Past, and shares the almost same gameplay. I'm looking forward to the Switch remake coming out this year.

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#32

Post by bstamour »

Madmallard wrote: post #10

I played Lufia 2 recently and it felt really tedious at times but the characters, dialogue and ending felt realistic and wholesome that it kept me engaged and sad when it was all over. Maybe nostalgia helps us single out older games when surely there's many like it nowadays hidden among the oversaturated mess.

Lufia 2 is one of my absolute favourite SNES-era RPG's. I try to replay it every few years.

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#33

Post by jstewartmobile »

phlakaton wrote: post #20

Seeing the callout to Xenoblade's music drew me back to listening to that soundtrack again... whence I stumbled upon 8-bit Music Theory's channel, and analysis of Chrono Trigger's and FFVI's music... and that's to say nothing of Secret of Mana or a half-dozen other incredible JRPG soundtracks. I'm probably weird, but the music, more than just about anything, is what brings me back to these JRPG games again and again.…

Google "City Pop"

I stumbled on to it a year or so ago, and it's pretty obvious how hard most classic video game music cribbed from it.

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#35

Post by [deleted] »

angarg12 wrote: post #6

Sometimes I play retro games, and I feel like nostalgia makes us excuse what is plain bad design. I have that feeling every time I play an old JRPG. Many of them feel slow, clunky, with painful mechanics... as opposed to current games, which had the experience from decades to get refined. The argument in favour of this is that the bad and boring parts make the good bits even better, in a sort of stoic way, they feel…

[deleted]

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#36

Post by Izkata »

badsectoracula wrote: post #8
angarg12 wrote: post #6

Sometimes I play retro games, and I feel like nostalgia makes us excuse what is plain bad design. I have that feeling every time I play an old JRPG. Many of them feel slow, clunky, with painful mechanics... as opposed to current games, which had the experience from decades to get refined. The argument in favour of this is that the bad and boring parts make the good bits even better, in a sort of stoic way, they feel…

What sort of conclusion is there to be drawn when you have already labeled the older games as slow, clunky with painful mechanics and newer games as refined? :-P I've seen many people say (about games in general) that older games often have more depth in contrast of newer more "casualized" games that cater to the lowest common denominator as often as people say what you wrote. At the end is really about personal tast…

> > as opposed to current games, which had the experience from decades to get refined.

> in contrast of newer more "casualized" games that cater to the lowest common denominator as often as people say what you wrote.

If I had to summarize it, I'd say that the decades of refinement have led to them being streamlined at the expense of creativity.

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#37

Post by level3 »

porknubbins wrote: post #28
level3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not talked about much because I don't think many people agree that all those things peaked in the 90s, outside of some sense of nostalgia. Objectively, all of the cultural outputs you mentioned have continued to grow, so any sense of peaking is probably based mainly on subjective taste.

Some of it comes down to taste certainly but I stil think theres an argument to be made that the kind of cutting edge stuff that was allowed to make it into the mainstream in Japan at that time represents distinctly identifiable period (if peak is too strong a word because $ and volume of output has gone up as you point out.) kind of like how in the us were seeing articles asking why hollywood made The Matrix in 99 a…

I agree with you that the output of the 90s represents an identifiable period in Japanese pop culture, but don't agree with the original sentiment of things having necessarily "stagnated" since then. There may be an argument, as you suggest, that the period was more progressive in a sense, but I'd have to see more examples of what you're talking about before I could agree.

The dominance of things like One Piece or AKB48 don't preclude the creation of "cutting edge" stuff, though they might certainly drown those out and make them less visible. I think something similar could be said for the 90s, with the popularity of Dragon Ball and Morning Musume, for example (though to a lesser degree). Still, the Internet has allowed for the creation and popularity of lots of interesting stuff, even if they may not be "mainstream."

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#38

Post by Blackthorn »

porknubbins wrote: post #28
level3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not talked about much because I don't think many people agree that all those things peaked in the 90s, outside of some sense of nostalgia. Objectively, all of the cultural outputs you mentioned have continued to grow, so any sense of peaking is probably based mainly on subjective taste.

Some of it comes down to taste certainly but I stil think theres an argument to be made that the kind of cutting edge stuff that was allowed to make it into the mainstream in Japan at that time represents distinctly identifiable period (if peak is too strong a word because $ and volume of output has gone up as you point out.) kind of like how in the us were seeing articles asking why hollywood made The Matrix in 99 a…

I find this comment pretty confusing for a number of reasons.

One Piece started in 1997, and many argue that it's only gotten better with time.

The Matrix came out in 1999, but so did things like Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace. I think there's a major survivor bias in your analysis.

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#39

Post by gryson »

badsectoracula wrote: post #8
angarg12 wrote: post #6

Sometimes I play retro games, and I feel like nostalgia makes us excuse what is plain bad design. I have that feeling every time I play an old JRPG. Many of them feel slow, clunky, with painful mechanics... as opposed to current games, which had the experience from decades to get refined. The argument in favour of this is that the bad and boring parts make the good bits even better, in a sort of stoic way, they feel…

What sort of conclusion is there to be drawn when you have already labeled the older games as slow, clunky with painful mechanics and newer games as refined? :-P I've seen many people say (about games in general) that older games often have more depth in contrast of newer more "casualized" games that cater to the lowest common denominator as often as people say what you wrote. At the end is really about personal tast…

To add to this last comment, I would say that the entire point of early JRPGs was grinding. It was a simple formula:

Go to new area -> grind -> level up, buy gear -> defeat boss -> go to new area

Even in later 8-bit JRPGs such as Dragon Quest IV, that's pretty much all there was. Very minimal story/dialogue, rare puzzles ("get item A to proceed" type). Story was necessarily limited by the small ROM size.

I find that grinding has an almost calming, meditative quality that sets JRPGs apart from action-based games that require a lot of focus.

With recent JRPGs, the shift has been to lessen grinding and include a much larger emphasis on story and dialogue. The downside here for traditionalists is that more of the game is spent reading dialogue than fighting random battles.

Does any of this reflect bad game design? I doubt it. I would say that the gameplay of DQIV is highly polished for its time. But you must approach it knowing what it is (a game of turn-based random battles) and what it is not (a game of rich story and dialogue).

Re: The Archetypal Resonance of Classic JRPGs

#40

Post by level3 »

viscanti wrote: post #27
level3 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably not talked about much because I don't think many people agree that all those things peaked in the 90s, outside of some sense of nostalgia. Objectively, all of the cultural outputs you mentioned have continued to grow, so any sense of peaking is probably based mainly on subjective taste.

> outside of some sense of nostalgia. I think there's a case to be made that WE changed since then and that it's not purely nostalgia. There weren't the same level of distractions in the pre-internet world (I understand that the Internet existed but it wasn't the attention economy driven behemoth that it is now). People could engage more deeply with things like Video Games and Anime. People today are conditioned to j…

Isn't the fact that societies change part of what nostalgia is?

Sure, the internet and social media has contributed heavily to changes in taste and modes of consumption, much like television and motion pictures (and video games!) before that.

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