If you happened to read my review of World of Final Fantasy this week, then you know I was over the moon with how creative Square Enix was with the stacking technique. Which of course got me thinking about how often Square Enix tries to be creative in their games, but they fall flat because of how they are creative. It’s not that they don’t try to be creative; they simply find weird ways to do so that are often more frustrating than they are truly innovative and entertaining.
On the one hand, I totally get why that happens. JRPGs want to stay unique from western RPGs, which is excellent. They should keep their unique mark in the world of video games, and I wouldn’t want them to conform to what is hip and popular for this week. But they do need to step up their game a bit to capture new audiences without frustrating their older, already loyal audience.
The time being, here is everything wrong with current JRPGs:
How Can They Improve?
What Square Enix has done with World of Final Fantasy is a step in the right direction. I’d even say that they took a good step with the Paradigm Shifts in how they were perfected in Final Fantasy XIII-2. But as I mentioned above, they went overboard in Lightning Returns by combining the paradigm shifts with the outfit changing from Final Fantasy X-2. What they need to do is rather simple. The following needs to be removed entirely from the system:
- Spikes in difficulty that require extensive grinding – I’m not talking about five or ten levels; I’m talking about the games that require an additional 20-30 levels that you need even after completing all of the main missions and a good portion of the side missions.
- Nakedness for the sake of nakedness. – Don’t think I need to elaborate here. I said enough above.
- Random encounters. – Put the enemies on the screen. Just throw them on there. No more of the random battle every five feet nonsense with enemies we can’t see.
After developers cut those things from their storyboards, they need to find creativity without going overboard on the complexity. It’s fine to trick up your battle systems and skill trees, but there’s no reason to go so crazy with the various features that players have to practice for hours to get the hang of it. It’s one thing to need practice to perfect using the system; it’s another need hours to even understand it.
Lastly, let’s write some good stories, ja? Don’t make plot twists be huge WTF moments where the world suddenly blows up for no reason. Don’t copy and paste the same amnesiac girl story who teams up with the reluctant hero to save the world.
Too few JRPGs have innovative, uncomplicated gameplay with fantastic stories, which is exactly why the genre has such a bad reputation. I’d love to see the surge of the great JRPG once again, and I know I’m not alone.
Essential Reading:
Everything Wrong with JRPGs
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Everything Wrong with JRPGs #1
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Random Encounters
I have no idea why random encounters are still staple for JRPGs. There is nothing worse than hitting a battle every five steps. Oh wait, I'm wrong; what's worse is when you accidentally get your party stuck in a place where you can only escape through one tiny area, but every time you try to turn around and make a move to that spot, a battle triggers. Random encounters are the biggest reasons why I yell at my TV while playing, especially when I've run out of potions and my party is limping along. In addition, I unfortunately startle way too easily, so random encounters in video games are some of the worst on my mental health.
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Required Grinding
After hitting 50 random encounters in every room in every dungeon, one would think that you would be leveled up enough to continue to progress through the game. Okay, so maybe you really should do a good portion of the side quests, just to make sure your levels are high enough. But more often than not, you will hit this wall near the end game, forcing you to replay dungeons over and over and over for grinding purposes. Sometimes games add an incentive to do this, such as acquiring collectibles you couldn't get early on. However, the spikes in difficulty should never be so great in a game that even with completing all the side quests, you still need to obtain 20-30 more levels. Kingdom Hearts, early Final Fantasy titles, and Idea Factory titles are some of the worst offenders.
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Overly Complicated Combat Systems
Most people agree that traditional turn-based combat found in JRPGs is stale in this present day. Numerous JRPG developers have found creative ways to spice it up, such as the Tales series, Eternal Sonata, and Lost Odyssey. Square Enix has had several twists on the traditional formula, such as the Active Time Battle System from Final Fantasy VII and the Command Synergy Battle System from Final Fantasy XIII. However, Square Enix has this horrible habit of constantly tinkering with its battle systems, almost like Tiger Woods with his golf swing. They tinker a new system to get it pretty close to perfect, and then they continue to tinker until it's gone to the other side of the spectrum into the worst thing imaginable. Case in point, what the Command Synergy Battle System became in Lightning Returns. The system was already complicated enough with the Paradigm Shifts, but now the garb controls the shifts as well? Who thought that was a good idea? For the record, tutorials shouldn't be several chapters long for a battle system.
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WTF Stories/Bad Stories
Most JRPG stories start out fantastic. You're hooked into the plot, and you're ready to see this to the end and save the world. But a good majority of these games seem to either not know how to properly end a story or properly write a plot. How many JRPGs have you played that made little to no sense after a certain WTF moment? Or how many had an obviously copied and pasted plot from three JRPG installments back? I feel like too many JRPGs are crafted around a gameplay mechanic with a story shoe-horned in. Stories and gameplay should be developed together instead of forced to work with one another.
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Naked Girls Just for the Sake of Being Naked
I'm cool with games being filled with pretty people. If we're going to stare at something for 30+ hours, most of us would rather it be something pretty. I've even come to terms with how ridiculously some developers clothe characters. They don't put video games in the best light, but there are other battles to fight. Throwing naked girls on the screen just to have naked girls needs to stop. It's one thing if there's a romance scene going on, because that does have some sort of purpose. Sometimes the romance is only present to show naked people, but at least the romance contributes to the story somewhat. These shots of girls bathing, showering, and/or sizing up their bodies serves no purpose other than to get players drooling over naked girls. In this day and age of feminism and overall gender equality, how is this acceptable for video games?
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Overly Complicated Leveling Systems and Skill Trees
No one likes a flat, boring, and/or linear skill tree. Most of the "fun" in an RPG comes from building a character to fit your party and your play style. A skill tree should be straight forward with plenty of options to customize your character. Granted, in JRPGs, everyone already pretty much has a set role, but there are sometimes ways to customize your character's abilities to fit your style. That said, finding a way to spruce up a linear skill tree by making it overly complicated is the absolute worst way to do so. Final Fantasy has been the worst culprit with its sphere grid, crystarium, and the Digital Mind Wave of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII.
