I was staying at a hospital with my dad an I ended up playing DQI and II mobile versions, I ended up enjoying them but also, it made me realize JRPGs haven't evolved at all, they just got better graphics but mechanically they're still the same. I played Ni No Kuni 2 a little before that stay and the game, despite not having random encounters, is still all about walking fighting walking fighting facing the monsters that beeline towards you which in practice is the same thing as random encounters, you just walk around and fights are forced on you because the enemy party has super high speed anyway. But the worlds still feel like wildernesses, there's no finding anything interesting in their worlds, it's always funneled to combat.
There's no finding a NPC who needs a potion in a cave or any sort of non-combat content that makes it worth exploring. It's just repetitive encounters and maybe a chest with shit loot. There was that comic about the caves in Pokemon games being annoying with the zubat encounter just before the player leaves it, but the thing is that JRPGs do that with the entire game outside of towns, it's just a boring and lazy way to do an overworld, just make all places behave the same with the same monster distribution regardless if you're in the middle of nowhere or right outside of a town gate.
>I ended up playing DQI and II mobile versions, I ended up enjoying them but also, it made me realize JRPGs haven't evolved at all, they just got better graphics but mechanically they're still the same So you played 2 old ass games and had some revelation that all new games haven't changed it up at all? Nice job, genious.
Adrian Williams
The newer ones are exactly the same. Every JRPG is and has been exactly the same for 30 years now.
Isaiah Bell
Other genres aren't like this, though. If you analyze bing bing wahoo you'll notice the jump to 3D alone allowed a whole plethora of new mechanics that enhanced the platforming, they have experimented with a water gun, the planetoid systems and more. That's a lot of change in a single IP alone
Evan King
>games focus on combat because that is what is historically most interesting and fleshed out in RPGs >games need to find a way to drain the player's resources as they travel while still leaving room for it to be interactive >games make travel through the wilderness and through hostile territory a continuous resource drain by throwing monsters at you That sounds to me like an elegant gameplay solution, not a lack of evolution.
Andrew Evans
Jrpgs fuck around with there mechanics. Especially the Final fantasys after SNES. Yes they all had turn based combat but that's like complaining about all Mario's having jumping.
Jack Hughes
Aside from DQ, you somehow came to the conclusion that ALL jrpgs have been stagnant for 20+ years? And you came to this realization by playing 2 games that are 20+ years old?
Jonathan Flores
Man, I sure loved it when Dragon Quest 1 had classes, branching skills paths, alchemy, 3D graphics and multiple enemies.
Jaxon Adams
>have a large ass overworld in a modern game >only thing to do in it is to fight It was ok in older games because of graphical compromises, but making every single spot outside of town the very samey monsterfest just comes across as lazy really. What's the point of having those enormous worlds if there's no any remote effort to make them seem alive? >resource drain by throwing monsters at you Eventually you become stronger and it just becomes evident it's repetitive and arguably soulless, because it feels like an algorithm designed the world, here put a monster every 20 square meters or whatever is the formula. Or use random encounters which is the same thing with whatever formula works for the encounter
Jace Nelson
>What's the point of having those enormous worlds if there's no any remote effort to make them seem alive? there isn't and everyone who makes open world games is falling for the world's largest meme, the purpose in old RPGs was hidden stuff
Leo Reed
>Yes they all had turn based combat Except for the huge amount that went action combat. Or card battles. Or tactical. Or mimicked WRPGs.
But yes, OP. All JRPGs are exactly the same because you only know a handful of them.
The thing is, the combat different in NNK2 being real time combat, and DQI/II doesn't change the fact both of those games you only walk around and fight. I guess there's also skirmish which is another form of combat that is shit. The exploration of those games is quite remarkably similar, despite the modern one having technology that would allow to do so much more than "having monsters everywhere"
Jaxon Hill
Pokemon gens 2-3 are the peak of jrpg. They just never did shit with it, so the games are easy toddler time wasters.
Noah Ramirez
>JRPGs are fossilized in time I mean first off, not every genre needs to re-invent the wheel when people like what works. JRPG's innovate inside the system. They can have different settings like Sci Fi, modern day or something completely whacky like Mario. Or different hooks like FFV's job system, SMT's negotiating with monsters, action commands and so on. >There was that comic about the caves in Pokemon games being annoying with the zubat encounter just before the player leaves it, but the thing is that JRPGs do that with the entire game outside of towns First off, Pokemon is a JRPG. Second, no lot's have reasonable encounter rates. >The newer ones are exactly the same. Every JRPG is and has been exactly the same for 30 years now.
I don't think they've fossilized, they just innovate within their niche. I think you've played too few to say they are all this or that.
Michael Bennett
In that game you go outside and it's still the same stuff, step right outside of a town and all you find are monsters. Anywhere outside of a town is the same sterile environment where you fight and find chests with shit loot. Is that an alive world to you?
Liam Gomez
>step right outside of a town and all you find are monsters. >very next sentence he admits there's treasure chests and other stuff to find Also, the major appeal of Dragon Quest, along with item progression, is NPC interaction. What makes the world feel "alive" is exploring it. Finding new locations which leads to new items and NPCs. It's basically the same as Zelda games, just with turn based battles instead of action battles.
Joshua Wood
>Is that an alive world to you?
It's a video game.
Asher Wright
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Isaac Russell
Changing a setting is not innovation, that's like basic shit and doesn't really have anything to do with gameplay mechanics. I know Pokemon is a JRPG, but it does a more interesting way of having encounters with the tall grass compared to random encounters everywhere or have the mobs on the map that dash towards you at lightspeed which is the same thing as random encounters in practice
Christopher Cox
you realized that now?
i realized that in like 2004
Camden Watson
"fight monster" and "find chest" are the only things you do outdoors in that game, there's hardly a large list of activities that can be done, there's no such thing as finding someone who's lost who needs help, a tiny side quest, or a traveling merchant, so basically the places that aren't towns are just wildernesses filled with monsters that would make traveling around impossible, it just doesn't make any sense. I liked DQ11 but it's kinda stupid to step outside of a small village and there's a huge ogre right next to the entrance that you can fight, wouldn't that be a problem for poor villagers who just want to go outside to fetch some berries or whatever?
So? Fiction still benefits from having coherence, if you're building a large world it would improve the game to make it feel more like a world, otherwise what's the point of making all those vast landscapes if they all behave like a very samey dungeon, except you reskin the kind of monster you find at the desert and the one you find in the snowy area?
Jaxson Clark
So... you just don't like random encounters then...
Henry Harris
I prefer this because modern Western RPGs are instead filled with boring and tedious sidequests that bog everything down. I prefer RPGs that focus entirely on combat, instead of collecting 5 dildos for some faggot or shit like that
Ryder Torres
the problem is obviously not only random encounters, play something like Trails in the Sky, you have monsters on the map, and they dash towards the player very fast, the way those games are designed are all about putting a formula of monster encounter and doing it everywhere without any effort to make areas feel apart other than you fight cactus mob in the desert, seal at the beach and snow wolf in the tundra
those games basically treat the entire world outside of towns as a samey dungeon
Aaron Hernandez
>there's no such thing as finding someone who's lost who needs help, a tiny side quest, or a traveling merchant Literally all three of these happen in Dragon Quest VIII. Good job proving you never played it.
Also, you're stupid because you're trying to claim "quests" are variety when finding items and interacting with NPCs aren't. Play a game like Final Fantasy XIV or hell, Skyrim, and see how doing 1000 quests isn't variety. Especially when it's all the same 5 types of quests with slightly altered triggers. And who does those triggers? NPCs.
Ayden Hill
Where are the traveling merchants in DQ8? You have to go to towns to do anything trading/selling. The world is absolutely barren.
