Back in March, Associate Editor Paul Ryan took a few shots at the Japanese role-playing game genre in his article Why JRPGs suck. While Paul raises some valid points in his piece (like, two), some at GamesRadar could write a graduate dissertation on why JRPGs are awesome.
Instead of coughing up a master's thesis right now, though, GamesRadar are going to take one of the most awesome upcoming JRPGs for the Xbox 360 and use it to prove Paul wrong. Because if any JRPG is going to throw out the book and win over the inner cynic of every gamer, it's going to be Tales of Vesperia - the eye-popping HD 10th anniversary installment in one of the granddaddy JRPG series.
Nevada Dru from Bits & Pieces explores delayed gratification in JRPG's.
I really enjoyed this article, it was a good read. This quote gave me a chuckle, because it's true!:
"Pretty much every JRPG involves the player’s characters going from barely being able to lift a sword to killing God"
Final Fantasy 15 the ultimate delayed game with delayed story dlc shoveled in at the last second. Doesn’t ring the gratifying bell when I see that stupid car at all. Article+thumbnail is like describing a 5star meal while watching your cat clean its backside.
Replies(2)More specifically I would say JRPGs are progressive gratification. Basically like listening to prog music vs anything else which imo is the best. Even if a JRPG is all about the journey, generally speaking JRPGs keep getting better as opposed to other games which usually have their high points come in either too soon, or the best parts just aren't nearly as impactful.
Also don't forget the direct comparison that the old Square Enix president made. He said Western players like TWITCH games and eastern players love Cerebral games. Now it was taken as a racist slam. But he meant it as one of the reasons outside of development time and cost return on investment(ROI). But he had a true point people here are TRAINED to like instant stuff. And people there are trained to like delayed over the top stuff. It is not a intelligence slam. I'm glad I LOVE the later gratification! Because it is way better!
The Tales games may be less recognizable than the Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy games, but that doesn't mean that they aren't worth playing!
“Tales series is considered one of the top three Japanese RPG series next to RPG giants like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy.”
How you gonna talk about the top three JRPG franchises and not mention Pokémon, the top selling series in the genre?
This is how the top JRPG series stack up
1. Pokémon - 340M
2. Final Fantasy - 144M
3. Dragon Quest - 78M
4. Monster Hunter - 52M
5. Kingdom Hearts - 30M
6. Souls - 25M
7. Tales of - 20M
Ten years ago, early in the lives of both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, Microsoft scored a coup when it secured the latest game from Namco's long-running Tales franchise - which had been almost exclusive to PlayStation since Tales of Destiny in the '90s.
Things got even more heated after Tales of Vesperia eventually did end up on PS3, in even better form, with new content and characters. But much to PS3 fans' consternation, Namco Bandai opted to keep the enhanced port Japan-exclusive.
Until last year, when Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition was announced for all existing platforms. The question remains: Was it worth the wait?
It is indeed. Havent felt this good for a tales game since....well vesperia on the 360. Namco needs to go back to these roots.
Phantasia will forever be my ideal tales game. But if they could do a solid remake in current engine I would be thrilled to relive that awesome game
I don’t think there’s any definitive ideal Tales game since they all have their own individual merit from one another
