The XBOX One

Kool_Moe_Dee · 2014-11-29T21:12:17.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

It’s amazing. Both you and he seem to know what I’ve played better than I do. You’re both claiming that what I remember happening - having to sit through over an hour of cutscenes without being able to play the game - didn’t really happen.

Glad you set me straight there.

I think you just hit a small sample size of games that are heavily weighted towards cutscenes.

RickH · 2014-11-30T09:23:54.000Z

Gus_Smedstad:

It’s amazing. Both you and he seem to know what I’ve played better than I do. You’re both claiming that what I remember happening - having to sit through over an hour of cutscenes without being able to play the game - didn’t really happen.

Glad you set me straight there.

I think what Gus is talking about is the notorious jRPG ‘story tax’ where the player has to sink in a good hour or 2 of barely-interactive setup before the real gameplay begins.

Hell, I still haven’t got there in Persona 4 Golden, and I’m pretty sure I’m past the hour mark (talked, went to school, had a dream, jumped into a TV, but still haven’t engaged in any jRPG combat)

Wallapuctus · 2014-11-30T09:46:59.000Z

JRPGs have no place in an XBox thread!

WarpRattler · 2014-11-30T12:07:18.000Z

But the Xbox 360 was full of them! And the Xbox One will have Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy XV!

tomchick · 2014-11-30T19:28:27.000Z

RickH:

I think what Gus is talking about is the notorious jRPG ‘story tax’ where the player has to sink in a good hour or 2 of barely-interactive setup before the real gameplay begins.

Oh, I know what he’s talking about. I was mainly responding to his uncalled for “fuck you for calling me a liar” response. I love listening to Warprattler talk Japanese games, but Gus pretty much ensured there wasn’t going to be any of that going on here.

RickH:

Hell, I still haven’t got there in Persona 4 Golden, and I’m pretty sure I’m past the hour mark (talked, went to school, had a dream, jumped into a TV, but still haven’t engaged in any jRPG combat)

Yeah, that’s really a worst case scenario, isn’t it? It’s why I haven’t made any progress with Persona 4. But I was interested in this whole idea that game tax is somehow uniquely prohibitive in Japanese games. I feel that’s a knee-jerk response that’s fine for, say, Phil Fish. But as someone who’s played – and not played because who has time for all those expository cutscenes? – his fair share of JPRGs, I’d love to hear more about how that’s not necessarily true. I mean, lordy, how many RTSs have I played where the first several hours consisted of padding to introduce each new unit with some dull scripted mission? Personally, I find that every bit as prohibitive a game tax as some long dopey exposition cutscene. Heck, consider the recent Assassin’s Creed games, such as the long lead-up in AC3 before you even meet the protagonist. Consider how long it takes for Dragon Age: Inquisition to get going. Some might argue that doesn’t even really happen until Skyhold and the specialty classes.

At any rate, I feel it’s a short-sighted and lazy stereotype to dismiss Japanese games because of the “endless” cutscenes.

Also, fuck you for calling me a liar!

-Tom

olaf · 2014-11-30T20:43:59.000Z

Wallapuctus:

JRPGs have no place in an XBox thread!

They have no place in any thread. What a shit genre. An affront to all things RPG. 12 year old protagonists, cutesy bullshit and the obligatory talking animal(s). I despise them, I have started a bunch, don’t think I have ever managed to finish even one.

Nesrie · 2014-11-30T21:33:22.000Z

olaf:

They have no place in any thread. What a shit genre. An affront to all things RPG. 12 year old protagonists, cutesy bullshit and the obligatory talking animal(s). I despise them, I have started a bunch, don’t think I have ever managed to finish even one.

It’s okay to dislike something, but it’s a pretty strong reaction to want to destroy it. The first RPG games I ever played were Japanese based, and youthful looking starting with NES and onward.

stusser · 2014-11-30T23:41:31.000Z

It’s just internet hyperbole. You guys need to learn to read between the lines. Nobody thinks Gus is a stinking dirty liar and Olaf doesn’t literally want the entire JRPG to expire because he doesn’t personally enjoy them.

Brakara · 2014-12-01T00:28:55.000Z

Just like “Japanese seem to care more about the actual games than about fancy hardware” is insanely hyperbolic. They do seem to care about that fancy hardware when they have the budget for it, that’s for sure.

Razgon · 2014-12-01T03:20:16.000Z

stusser:

It’s just internet hyperbole. You guys need to learn to read between the lines. Nobody thinks Gus is a stinking dirty liar and Olaf doesn’t literally want the entire JRPG to expire because he doesn’t personally enjoy them.

This is probably not the place for the discussion, but I have massive issues with this. If people don’t mean what they write, and we don’t have any other clues as to what they mean, how are we to understand the meaning of their posts?

stusser · 2014-12-01T04:57:43.000Z

Through context, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, and not overreacting like wailing autistic manchildren.

Too much to ask for in most anonymous cesspit internet forums certainly, but we’ve all been here many years.

Razgon · 2014-12-01T05:02:16.000Z

stusser:

Through context, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, and not overreacting like wailing autistic manchildren.

Too much to ask for in most anonymous cesspit internet forums certainly, but we’ve all been here many years.

I’m not autistic.

mrbloo · 2014-12-01T05:03:34.000Z

I’ve been tested.

WarpRattler · 2014-12-01T06:26:30.000Z

Is there supposed to be some sort of context to “JRPGs are an affront to RPGs and no one should ever be allowed to talk about them” that I should be seeing that would make it a reasonable thing to say?

RickH · 2014-12-01T06:35:57.000Z

Nesrie:

It’s okay to dislike something, but it’s a pretty strong reaction to want to destroy it. The first RPG games I ever played were Japanese based, and youthful looking starting with NES and onward.

I still have a lot of affection for the characters in Skies of Arcadia but I’ll admit it’s a acquired taste. Even the jrpg i liked the most required a lot of tolerance for its mannered approach. I had no idea why one guy was running around but it was actually a whole group of people and they weren’t explaining.

I still keep trying jrpgs trying to recapture the magic.

Ginger_Yellow · 2014-12-01T07:54:44.000Z

I had no idea why one guy was running around but it was actually a whole group of people and they weren’t explaining.

So, like western RPGs?

stusser · 2014-12-01T08:06:54.000Z

WarpRattler:

Is there supposed to be some sort of context to “JRPGs are an affront to RPGs and no one should ever be allowed to talk about them” that I should be seeing that would make it a reasonable thing to say?

He was being hyperbolic. Hyperbole is exaggeration for effect as a rhetorical figure of speech. He personally hates JRPGs, so he went on a rant to try to be funny. It should not be taken literally.

Teiman · 2014-12-01T08:12:32.000Z

Bill Gates in your pants:

Bill Gates was preparing to walk out on stage to deliver his much-anticipated keynote at the Tokyo Game Show on Friday 30th March 2001. The Makuhari Exhibition Hall was packed with a 4000-strong audience. Executives from all the major Japanese game publishers were there: Capcom, Square, Tecmo, Sega, Namco, the lot. Press had gathered from all over the world, and they were all there to see one thing: the Xbox.

Backstage, Gates turned to Kevin Bachus, at the time Xbox director of third party relations and the man charged with getting all those Japanese executives out there in the audience to make games for Microsoft’s new console. “Here, hold this,” Gates said, pulling out his wallet. “I don’t like having anything in my pocket when I’m talking.”

Suddenly, Bachus was holding the wallet of the richest man in the world. It felt thin, as if only a credit card and a driver’s license were inside. “I was terrified to even open it,” he remembers over a decade later. “But of course that’s all you need when you’re a billionaire right?”

Gates’ star turn at the Tokyo Game Show was supposed to show the Japanese game industry that Microsoft was serious about getting into the console business. Gates, one of the most famous people in the world, one of the most respected businessmen ever, had taken the time to make sure Japan felt important.

Spoilers:
Japan did not care.

Also, If you are talking with Mr. Bill Gates, and he seems happy to see you. He are not. He has a boner. He literally want to talk to people withouth anything in his pants.

JoshV · 2014-12-01T09:22:11.000Z

Teiman:

Spoilers:
Japan did not care.

Spoilers: MS also learned that it didn’t need to care about Japan =)

stusser · 2014-12-01T09:48:32.000Z

Japanese developers, not consumers, were a major factor fueling the PS2’s success. Japanese style games have fallen out of fashion in the west lately, but that sort of thing tends to be cyclical. Huge JRPGs, anime tie-ins, cutesy and/or oddly effeminate characters, etc, all that stuff will all be back eventually. MS should care about Japan.

More on the consumer side they should also care about India and China. Nobody cares about India. Huge oversight.