The worst part about these “genre dying!” threads is the people that come out in droves to say “Good riddance! I will mock this genre with criticisms that lost relevance five, maybe ten years ago!” Final Fantasy VII came out around fifteen years ago, guys. Are we still talking about the Knights Of The Round summon and pretending it has anything to do with the gameplay of today? Are we going to talk about Mode-7 graphics and lament the death of the Wii? Are we going to harass Microsoft for the oversized and laughable Xbox controller and say that it’s a clear sign they don’t know how to design a good controller?
For every uninspired Final Fantasy clone out there, you have just as many, if not more, actual quality games in the JRPG genre. The triumph of world design and subtlety that is Final Fantasy XII – but it’s much easier to make fun of the “bunny girl” and the kid with the weird abs, isn’t it?
How about the mythology-in-a-blender Persona series, and everything else in the Shin Megami Tensei line, from roguelikes to a mashup of dungeon crawlers and dating sims? The Persona series features probably the best RPG localization I’ve ever come across, and the concepts at work in Persona 3 and Persona 4 are thought-provoking and borderline unsettling in places. But no one talks about them, or if they do they get the “Atlus pass,” tearing down an entire genre while conveniently leaving out the one critically acclaimed game that they personally like.
The World Ends With You, a quirky, funny, and altogether brilliant take on both Japanese youth culture and a very Catholic afterlife. Gameplay that worked in the standard JRPG tropes (levels, various elemental attacks, equippable items that raise stats) with a combat system both fast and furious that used both screens and every button on the DS without overwhelming the player. Paper Mario/Mario & Luigi, Nintendo’s own JRPGs from the Nintendo 64 to the Nintendo DS, deconstructing their own games and mythology to make fun of themselves with expert writing and top-notch humor. Tales of Vesperia, a gorgeous high-action JRPG with the best cast of characters this side of an Insomniac platformer and a game that explores the themes between doing what’s right and doing what you should, giving both equal weight and showing the typical JRPG hero in a new light. Lost Odyssey’s brilliant short stories. The balance and gameplay in a sprawling epic like Tactics Ogre. And this isn’t including games that break out of the JRPG mold but will probably be filed next to them in whatever encyclopedia chronicles the history of the gaming world, like Valkyria Chronicles and Nier. Hell, you could argue that Dissidia is as much a JRPG as it is a fighting game. Might not work, but you could try.
I don’t give a damn if you don’t like JRPGs. That might be hard to believe since I just got all bent out of shape about it, but I don’t. What I DO give a damn about is when people tear down a genre I like with accusations and mockeries from either the worst of the genre or elements of the game that just aren’t relevant anymore, and haven’t been relevant for years. “Long summon spells that take control away from you and do elaborate animations with no purpose and end up doing practically no damage!” Yeah, you know what other game did that? Planescape: Torment. Mechanus Cannon. Google it.
Every JRPG is not Final Fantasy VII any more than every Western RPG is Oblivion/Morrowind/whichever game you hate today, every FPS is Duke Nukem Forever, every platformer is Bubsy 3D, every sports game is Madden, every strategy game is Master of Orion 3, or every fighting game is Street Fighter. If you say that they are, you’re either misinformed or willfully stupid. I hold Quarter To Three to a higher standard.
RAAAAAAAAAAAGE
