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BeaArthur
 
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What happend to the JRPG?
175 days 18 hours ago | by: BeaArthur
In what appeared to me as an almost overnight affair JRPG's simply vanished.  Now I am in no way shape or form a JRPG enthusiast.  I enjoy JRPG's on a more than casual basis but have in recent years found myself becoming more and more aware of the virtual disappearance of the JRPG.

Is it wrong to say that I feel completely abandoned by Square-Enix with their recent installment of Final Fantasy?  They took one of the most established franchises in gaming and butchered it, turning it into a game that took most of the control out of the players hands.  I mean not only did they completely change a tried and true formula but they replaced it with a menu system that has an option for combat if you so chose.  Now I will not get on Square-Enix to much I mean they have been the leader in the JRPG genre for as long as I can remember but for them to abandon the traditional JRPG in order to attempt to get more "modern" is a slap in the face to their loyal fans; myself included.  I mean who knows FF13 may be a great game and they may completely overhaul the combat system again and it may end up better than any traditional turn based RPG.  But as the old adage goes, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I mean who decided that we were tired of turn based RPG's and wanted something different?  I certainly didn't.  I can still remember instances where I sat their staring at the TV hoping it was going to give me the answers; I was in a no win situation and no matter what I did my party was going to die.  Those instances are some of my fondest game memories.  Staring at the TV trying to figure out how I am going to be able to beat the boss when I am so close yet so far away; with one dead party member, one party member in the yellow and infected with poison and one party member without the ability to caste full life.  Sadly those moments are gone; and apparently they are not going to come again anytime soon. 

If I could impart some advice it would be to cherish the classic JRPG's you own.  It would seem that JRPG's are not long for this world with few company's still investing in the formula.  Although I am not the biggest fan of Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, JRPG fans are almost forced to embrace them because in reality they are almost all we have left.  How ironic is it that the only console still strongly embracing the JRPG market is the only one not made in Japan.
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cloud360-7th_account - 175 days 17 hours ago
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I am the smae as you

i wanna buy Square Enix just for the reason to make them the best and make them make games turn based and whta not

Squaresoft was good but when they merged they wen erghh. KH2 was crap KH1 was good it was made by Square
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harv052 - 175 days 15 hours ago
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We can't really complain about them trying something new...If it wasn't for that, gaming as we know it wouldn't go anywhere. They have to bring something new to the table once in a while.
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BeaArthur - 175 days 1 hour ago
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There are ways to make things new and fresh without completely changing them, and making them worse. Besides it doesn't make sense to change something that has been established and has worked for 20 years. If they wanted to try out some kind of new system they could have created a new game and tried it out on that platform, they didn't have to change something that has been working forever.
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PS360WII - 174 days 18 hours ago
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Well were Final Fantasy has fallen Dragon Quest will remain. True many RPG's these days are towards the action-orientated state there will still be a few turn based and grid based titles. Sad to say though it looks like Final Fantasy is now an action rpg. I don't like it as it makes the game somewhat easier you can run from battles when wanted or avoid them all together. Random battles however will always give you a 'will I make it or not' feeling. Even hardcore gamers are becoming a bit casual with their favorite genres :(
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darkpower - 173 days 4 hours ago
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4 - The hardest part of any gaming franchise...
...is staying innovative. If you go the tried and true way of doing things, you are going to be really familiarizing your franchise, but pretty soon, you'll become a bore because everyone will know what to expect, and you won't be able to keep people interested by adding some new elements to a familiar formula. You have to sometimes take a chance at something if something is going that route.

Though at the same time, you don't want to go TOO out of the way of what has made the series the series. If you change TOO much, then you lose the magic of the series and lose your loyal fans.

I think what has made the FF series what it has become is not the turn based stuff, but rather the innovations that it has given the RPG world. The ATB system, the many magic and ability systems it has given us and has tried with each game, and the different strategies that you must use in order to win in a battle, what decisions you make, and how quick you need to make them before you get your head handed to you. That is essentially what Final Fantasy has given us along with the stories (lately even some replayability has surfaced in FF games). Turn based RPGs are everywhere, so we don't have to worry too much about that. But they always try to look for ways to improve on the battle system so it's not the same thing.

I think you made a good point that I agree with. It's just the game you chose as an example wasn't a good one since it is not that it had the turn based system in play in FF that made that game, but rather how they changed it, and that was what they kept in play all this time.
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BeaArthur - 173 days 1 hour ago
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It wasn't so much that they changed it. Although I am a fan of the JRPG and would have liked to have seen the series stay turn based, it was the system they gave us to replace the turn based game play. I felt that FF12 played like garbage, I felt like it took a lot of control out of the players hands and was far less strategic than it had been previously. Also all the gambits in the world can't make up for original thinking. I may have the gambit setup to heal if the health drops below 30%, but I may be fighting a monster that requires me to heal on a more regular basis so then I have constantly react and react instead of thinking and planning. Or I have reset my gambits which gets old and tiring after awhile. But good comment though, I do agree with some of your points. Innovation is not always the best thing. JRPG's have survived for a long time on the old formula. I play Final Fantasy for the story and the slight alterations that every game comes with. I just feel that there are plenty of ways to keep it fresh without completely changing it.
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evilbubble - 169 days 23 hours ago
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4.2 - Agree with Dark Power...
And for BeaArthur, you have to have innovation or the game play will get stale after a while. Don't get me wrong I love turn based and there are still plenty of turn based games, i.e. SRW and Fire Emblem series.

Also more and more turn based games now do give the player some sort of "interrupt or counterattack" moves when they are attacked. Unlike older turn based games. It is innovation to keep the game fresh.
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BeaArthur - 168 days 1 hour ago
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4.3 -
evilbubble...true but there is a difference between innovation and completely changing the formula. Lost Odyssey has a lot of innovation (although fundamentally flawed game play destroyed my ability to enjoy the game) without changing the overall formula. I agree it's important to keep things fresh but there are plenty of ways to do that without completely overhauling the battle system; especially when you consider how poor the combat system for a game like FF12.
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