2012-02-09, 10:44 AM
One thing about the GOOD jRPGs is the sense of discovery. Coming across new, WELL DESIGNED areas was always fun for me. FF7 for example, was really appealing with its steampunk look, some places i'd look around and go 'wait what the heck is tha- ohhhh'. And some towns I'd spend a while looking all over for some crazy situation/npc that could be around the corner While checking out the sights.
In Star Ocean 2, I had a LOT of fun coming across new characters by chance, and with private actions, cause I wanted to see what new situations they would put the characters in. For most of the tales series, 'skits' brought the best out of the pre-determined characters' personality. So it was less about creating your own characters, but really discovering as much as you could about the ones you were given.
In other words, a good jRPG, to me, is one that uses its limitations in characters and interaction with the world as an *asset* and not a weakness. That's probably why I didn't like Tales of the World. The Tales characters finally crossing paths with each other was a huge draw, but running through bland dungeons made of tilesets WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA for the series, especially when your own created character doesn't even have a skill tree to navigate to at least MAKE you want to grind.
Skyrim seems like it has a lot to discover in terms of loot, BUT so much of it looks like standard fantasy fare, the interactions seem rewarding, but the cinematics to reward the situations seems weak, which i suppose is the price of making a game more open ended. I intend to play it eventually thanks to all the praise and perhaps even the story, but i find the 99 forests and log cabins of various size in videos rather drab. Not to mention I never was the biggest fan of first person gameplay.
In Star Ocean 2, I had a LOT of fun coming across new characters by chance, and with private actions, cause I wanted to see what new situations they would put the characters in. For most of the tales series, 'skits' brought the best out of the pre-determined characters' personality. So it was less about creating your own characters, but really discovering as much as you could about the ones you were given.
In other words, a good jRPG, to me, is one that uses its limitations in characters and interaction with the world as an *asset* and not a weakness. That's probably why I didn't like Tales of the World. The Tales characters finally crossing paths with each other was a huge draw, but running through bland dungeons made of tilesets WAS NOT A GOOD IDEA for the series, especially when your own created character doesn't even have a skill tree to navigate to at least MAKE you want to grind.
Skyrim seems like it has a lot to discover in terms of loot, BUT so much of it looks like standard fantasy fare, the interactions seem rewarding, but the cinematics to reward the situations seems weak, which i suppose is the price of making a game more open ended. I intend to play it eventually thanks to all the praise and perhaps even the story, but i find the 99 forests and log cabins of various size in videos rather drab. Not to mention I never was the biggest fan of first person gameplay.