Your standard jRPGS often seem unlikeable to western gamers that are used to playing western games, while gamers that have been playing jRPGs since the NES find nothing wrong with them... it's often hard for either side to say what exactly seems right or irks them, so this is an attempt of mine to find some of the points.
I'll just go into the main one, since most games revolve around combat...
Now, there's a lot else that jRPGs do that used to be done due to processing/storage limits (but is still done because it's shorter/cheaper/less work and they get away with it), but going into all of them would take too much time.
I mean I could write an entire article about overdesigned characters and their weapons. Okay yeah Cloud from FF7 is supposed to have a unique weapon (it was custom-made for a lot of money by the original owners), yet all the stores in the game seem to sell weapons like his, sometimes for pocket change, and you can't find normal swords? Issues like this get into the issue of overdesigning characters putting limits on or otherwise altering the world while still keeping gameplay mechanics functional, and sometimes weird compromises have to be made that simply take believability away from the world.
I'll just go into the main one, since most games revolve around combat...
- Generic concept of "Hit Points" and combat.
Combat in most jRPGs is plainly unrealistic. You're walking along in a dungeon, suddenly you go on a 2-second acid trip and then you're fighting enemies. Turn-based or speed-based ("active" battle my ass, it's just that the frequency of your turns goes by your speed in most games with this setting), you and the enemy wail on each other, reducing some sort of number until you faint or die. There's three main problems with this setup compared to the way most other games work.- The enemies show up out of nowhere in an otherwise-empty area. The whole "random encounter" aspect, as it were... it's just lazy nowadays. In the NES days yeah, the systems couldn't handle dungeons full of sprites with their own radius of detection to cause battles...
But hell, if the SNES can do it (Chrono Trigger for example), then a PS3 can damn well do it. Games continue to have the random encounter system because it takes less effort, and they get away with it because it's what jRPG players are used to.
- Most characters will just stand there and let you knife them in the face. What is up with that? "Well I just stabbed you in the chest, I guess it's your turn to stab me now so I'll stand still and let you do it." This is almost a polar opposite to how many western games work, where a main focus is not getting hit in the first place.
There's many alternative combat types to counter this, though... and games have been dealing with them for years. Even Tales Of Phantasia for the SNES had an alternative battle system, a live-moving side-on view.
- Characters have this magical HP value that does nothing until it's reduced to 0, where it causes death/fainting. This is an issue inherent to many games across the spectrum, but it's most jarring in jRPGs because characters can seem to stand up to tons of incredible abuse (like having an elephant dropped on them), but then getting poked by a fluffy bunny causes instant death or something like that.
There have been plenty of games that use more realistic combat, but the down side to these games is that combat tends to be a lot riskier and troublesome. Perhaps some middle ground could be reached to account for continued gameplay with the same character, but as usual the generic HP system is the easiest to implement so it's what most jRPGs stick to.
- The enemies show up out of nowhere in an otherwise-empty area. The whole "random encounter" aspect, as it were... it's just lazy nowadays. In the NES days yeah, the systems couldn't handle dungeons full of sprites with their own radius of detection to cause battles...
Now, there's a lot else that jRPGs do that used to be done due to processing/storage limits (but is still done because it's shorter/cheaper/less work and they get away with it), but going into all of them would take too much time.
I mean I could write an entire article about overdesigned characters and their weapons. Okay yeah Cloud from FF7 is supposed to have a unique weapon (it was custom-made for a lot of money by the original owners), yet all the stores in the game seem to sell weapons like his, sometimes for pocket change, and you can't find normal swords? Issues like this get into the issue of overdesigning characters putting limits on or otherwise altering the world while still keeping gameplay mechanics functional, and sometimes weird compromises have to be made that simply take believability away from the world.
