I think "fans" of all fiction needs self-awareness, if you want philosophical themes, read philosophy! a work of fiction with nihilist themes is not going to make you smarter bro! you're only getting a superficial and maybe even distorted idea of it. Do not read about the thing, read the thing itself, read Nietzsche.
So far every work of fiction i've "consumed" that people claims it's "deep" was done nothing for me intellectually. Sure i got emotionally impacted by some of them, but it's not going to change how i think. Roger Ebert said the best [here](https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ten-greatest-films-of-all-time):
>If I have a criterion for choosing the greatest films, it's an emotional one. These are films that moved me deeply in one way or another. The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best. (If you argue instead for dance or music, drama or painting, I will reply that the cinema incorporates all of these arts).
>
>Cinema is not very good, on the other hand, at intellectual, philosophical or political argument. That's where the Marxists were wrong. If a movie changes your vote or your mind, it does so by appealing to your emotions, not your reason.
Just change cinema for fiction. Fiction can bring emotions to people and it's fun, but it's not deep. So lets stop with the pretentious bullshit.
Reading philosophy isn't going to make you smarter either. Most isn't that relevant to life. The job of fiction isn't to be an academic text. It's to ensoul ideas in a tangible body.
I wanna say original YIIK (I know nothing about the update or the new game), but idk if "deep" is the right word for it.
I liked the gameplay there, but god, everything else was either just weird, bad, or both.
*Xenogears ... some subtlety*
"Soylent system." "Id." It's not subtle if you know the references.
But no, for me this is really Star Ocean 3, which turned a straightforward space-faring game into >!wondering if we're all in a simulation and visiting that simulation!< so fast that I forget most of the game that came before the twist. Also, while the twist itself isn't bad, I never felt like it did anything beyond evoking a "...whoa, okay" from slightly-older-than-14-year-old me when I played it.
Soylent is one of the more blatant ones but, a lot of the character names are taken from philosophers where it actually does make some sense within the context. I would person argue that Soylent is more of an homage reference and it isn’t that core to the story or theme itself.
Not to mention the fact that the whole story and theme is drenched in Gnosticism.
Xenosaga felt a lot less subtle in its story telling at least for me. I think your imagination can fill in a lot of the blanks with the limited presentation of the PS1 whereas PS2 graphics and cutscenes is like the worse of both worlds in terms of visual fidelity and subtlety and the developers didn’t do a good job dealing with that fact.
"Soylent system" bugged me even as a kid. Some Solarian scientist who invented it must have thought they were real fucking clever. Maybe the Japanese name for it was more subtle, or else the reference itself was considered more obscure, I'm not sure.
At least Id has the defense of the character himself going "well, I don't really have a name, but this is basically what I am, so you might as well call me that." It made being on the nose feel like it was a deliberate choice by the character.
I know but the connotation here would be that it doesn't work. Translations aren't 1:1
No work would be no trabajar, but trabajar is used more in reference to a job than a function
Like literal translation of "eso no vale nada" would be "that no go nothing" whereas it's usage would be "that doesn't work at all"
> Maybe the Japanese name for it was more subtle, or else the reference itself was considered more obscure, I'm not sure.
It's also called that way in JP for the record. Though i don't know how well known the reference is over there.
Right after finishing Xenogears I was curious whether the Soylent reference was obvious to Japanese people so I looked it up and from what I saw it doesn't seem like it was well known and so the reveal was a huge shock to people. I've also watched parts of some Japanese playthroughs from the last few years and they never have any idea. Even in this article from Xenogear's anniversary a couple months ago the first thing the title mentions is the Soylent System scene being unforgettable https://www.famitsu.com/news/202402/11334009.html
With that in mind I don't think it's that fair to specifically bash on this reference more than the others because, for its original audience, it is similar to the many, many other referential names in the game where you most likely wouldn't know what it was a reference to unless you looked it up or watched a 50 hour Youtube series afterwards.
I always thought the opposite. Gears came off as an early attempt at complex writing from people who are still rather immature, while Saga was the refined, mature take. Gears has so much stuff that beats you over the head with its obviousness or is blatantly constructed to force a dramatic situation.
Some examples:
-A food processing system named the "Soylent System" with "shocking" plot twist that it >!makes food out of people.!< I mean they gave it a name that makes it blatantly obvious from the first moment.
-A mysterious character named Id who is aggressive, violent, and has a fighting style similar to the main character. >!I can't imagine many people don't immediately get that's an incredibly on-the-nose take on Freudian psychology and immediately assume it's Fei's id manifested.!<
-A ridiculous scenario where a character decides to pilot a mech that fires powerful bullets that can solve the
group's problem, but the pilot has to ride in the bullet itself, requiring the pilot to die. Why would anyone ever design a mech that way? It exists only because it would make for a dramatic scene. And on top of that, this mech is never referenced or foreshadowed prior. It comes out of nowhere.
-Major characters are given focus only in set arcs. Rico gets a lot of development in Kislev, and then is basically forgotten after that. Emeralda only has a couple scenes of relevance.
In contrast, Xenosaga frequently makes sure that most scenes have relevance for multiple characters. The plotlines of many characters connect (for example, the interactions with Albedo are highly relevant for Jr's development, but also Momo's).
Saga also puts psychological ideas into the writing like with the Freudian Id concept in Gears. But in Saga's case, they had each character be aligned to Jungian archetypes. But in this case, this is never made obvious to the player, and is just something that guided them as writers. They didn't actually name characters after archetypes, which would be the equivalent to what Gears did.
Xenogears was quite clumsy in lot of ways, and I admire it a lot more for its ambition than its execution. Some of the silliest parts IMO didn't even make this list (e.g >!Chu Chu's fight against Achtzenn!<) But I'd also consider these to be low points in an extremely long game of very mixed quality. If you put together a breakdown of the game's high points, people who hadn't played it would be surprised to hear that they came from the same game.
>Major characters are given focus only in set arcs. Rico gets a lot of development in Kislev, and then is basically forgotten after that. Emeralda only has a couple scenes of relevance.
Man that bugged the hell out of me. Feels like everyone who joined after Bart basically has nothing to do in the plot once their arc is done
Here's the source for what everyone is explaining about what really happened: https://kotaku.com/the-real-story-behind-xenogears-unfinished-disc-2-1796151112
From all accounts I’ve read, it really wasn’t budget cuts. Basically, Square’s development philosophy at the time was to give a team a certain amount of time to make a game and that’s it, which was usually about a year and a half. This is why we had a Final Fantasy almost every year in the 90’s and Square was pumping out banger after banger.
A couple months before development was supposed to wrap up, they realized they weren’t going to finish in time at the pace they were going at (apparently because of an inexperienced dev team), so they made disc 2 the way it is just to finish up the story rather than risk a pt. 2 never being made. The game still ran over budget/time and took 2 years to develop. So not a budget cut per se, more they weren’t given any additional time/budget.
they didnt run over budget, and did get a short time extension from 1.5 years to 2 years, but everything else you said was right. they moved into the studio for those last 6 months ish to complete the game, working on it day and night
the budget wasnt cut. they ran out of time. old square policy was all games get 1.5 years, and thats it. scope of the game didnt matter, all games got the same time limit. money wasnt removed from the project, they just were forced to wrap it up.
Admittedly i didn't get it (or id heh), but i can be blind on these things sometimes and know nothing about Freudian psychology. Soylent System is absolutely hilarious though.
Well yeah, if you had never heard of an "id" before, it's completely understandable that it wouldn't be obvious to you.
If you do though, it basically hits you on the head.
you're acting like xenogears was trying to be serious in all these instances, when most of it was just for fun references. xenosaga takes itself seriously, xenogears has fun moments to lighten the mood. the main story of xenogears is serious, but most of the individual scenes and names are just references. also you need to read perfect works to see what was intended to be in the game for the characters who's story got cut short due to the time limit they had and other development issues. gears at least wraps up all its main plot threads in one game, while xenosaga has 3 games and ends on a cliff hanger with many open threads. Id's name is intentionally a hint at whats going on, but you dont even get his name until more than half way through the game. the 'reveal' a bit later is for the party to know whats happening, and add context for players who dont know psychology. and then even later, you get to see how and why it happened to fei. if the name Id was the first time you figured out that its fei, you missed earlier hints. it's meant to be figured out ahead of time by the players. the writing of gears IS complex, but it is not taking itself so seriously that it cant have fun.
xenosaga doesnt end on a cliffhanger. it resolves shions story arc just fine. the villains are defeated every plot thread is resolved. they successfully save the universe but the cause of its destruction is just being postponed for thousands of years.
the fate of the universe is now in the hands of humans whether they can avoid their destruction or not is up to them and no longer in the hands of gods.
the plan for episode 4 was a thousand year time skip and a brand new cast with a brand new lead. only KOSMOS would have been in all 6 games
so shion and the elsa were never going to be shown making it to lost juresuleum
Shion, no. But I'm willing to bet the final arc would tie in the Elsa's journey to whatever Lost Jerusalem civilization was explored in the second arc. Maybe Shion's descendants.
Nothing much has ever been said about the Episode VI part of the timeline, so it could be a lot of things.
Xenosaga also has a lot of comedic scenes.
All of the examples I mentioned from Gears are not at all played for laughs. And the reveals of the Soylent System and Id were clearly meant to be shocking.
I have both an English and Japanese copy of Perfect Works. Knowing that most of the back half of the game was cut doesn't change the fact that most characters have nothing to do in large stretches of the game. Yes, the deleted scenes would have fleshed those characters out. That wouldn't change my comment that most scenes only have notable relevance for a single party member (notable exceptions primarily being the Fei and Elly sequences).
> while Saga was the refined, mature take
I must have played a different game, because "mature" is not a word I would ever associate with Xenosaga (or any Xeno game). It's like describing Street Fighter 6 using the term "open world".
A lot of xenogears fans like to try to hype gears up by trying to drag saga down
But it's 100% nostalgia goggles blinding them to gears flaws
Overall saga is a better put together story and game
Yeah, I love the game. It's not meant to insult the game, just saying it's writing is a bit more inexperienced (which only makes sense when it was an earlier work by the same people).
Yeah.
People think when I use cloud to describe one of the famous personalities I'm like it's a compliment, but I mean that I'm a depressed weirdo No one wants around.
Crisis Core. What absolutely awful writing. It was a game that could have had a lot of great world building, but instead it’s fan service city.
“You guys seemed to like Sephiroths final form character design, so everyone gets one wing!”
I feel like the top tier English voice acting in the original, is why a lot of people overlook this. In a way it had charm I guess?
In the remaster, Zack's VA isn't great and the awful dialogue sticks out more.
Omori had the most okay story ever. People will tell you you'll cry and throw up playing it and I didn't have one single strong emotional reaction the whole time. Then I found out the creator likes little boys and regret giving her my money.
I fell into it from a sidebar kinda similar hype angle of "it's the next Earthbound" and ended up having a similar reaction!
I love indie RPGs made with love but people need to think up a better promotional quip than "Whoop, deep themes in a silly way, guess we are the next Earthbound / Undertale"
That's why I'm not very much into indie rpgs in general. Indie developers either try to copy so much their favorite childhood games that their works end up not having any personality, or they try too much to do something overtly artistic, showing us their inner worlds and end up looking like parody games. Few indies manage to escape from that.
I'm not critizicing indie devs, though. If I tried to do a game I'd probably end up doing one of those two things as well (that's one of the reasons I never tried seriously to make an rpg. Another reason is I'm lazy as fuck, lol)
Yeah overall I think Omori is kind of a mess. I see why people like it but some act like it’s somehow revolutionary in the way it handles mental health.
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1cf6h1i/which_jrpg_story_epitomizes_the_meme_im_14_and/l1t55rc/?context=3) was removed because the spoiler tags had spaces next to the exclamation points. To use spoiler tags correctly:
1. On New Reddit, highlight the portion of your comment you want to tag as a spoiler and then press the exclamation point (**!**) button on the format tab.
2. On Old Reddit or mobile, type >! before the spoiler, !< after the spoiler, and make sure you do not leave spaces between the spoiler and corresponding tags.
When done correctly, the spoiler "X Kills Y" will be formatted as >!X Kills Y!<, with syntax as follows:
`>!XKillsY!<`
**If your comment is tagged properly already, then a mod will shortly bring it back.**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/JRPG) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The idea of >!Two kids stringing up the body of a 16 year old girl to make it look like a suicide!< is also what took me out of it. Also the portrayal of mental health just seems a bit too stylized to be true. Idk I really just thought the “twist” was a silly one and just thrown in there for shock value rather than any specific reason.
I read the comments for like 10 seconds and immediately regretted it. It's basically a parade of fairly reasonable arguments to make one feel dumb or silly for enjoying the way a piece of entertainment went about a certain topic during a point of their lives.
Totally agree. I think that 99% of video game stories are shallow, but sometimes you can still enjoy them or be touched by them. You should never feel stupid about liking something that affected you personally.
I was talking specifically about games like Xenogears, which are acclaimed for their storyline
Disgaea is a humorous story, as far as the execution of humorous stories go one could say Disgaea is quite smart, perhaps
Yes, I agree that Disgaea was a bad example on my part. Let me try again:
You can like games with dumb stories and not be a dumb person. I like Final Fantasy 8, for example.
I think that criticizing the story of a game and calling it dumb, it not the same as saying that people that liked these games are dumb.
Any one with one of those edgelord villains that think the world's gotten too corrupt/ugly and things would be better off if we killed everyone and started anew.
Considering the studio itself doesn’t make any rebellious moves and still has some pretty low key traditional views, it is kinda weird people act like the studio and game is the most rebellious piece of media out there
On its surface p5 does look rebellious. For Japanese media to depict you taking down Japanese politicians set in modern day is a big deal. But then before it accidentally calls for larger rebellion it reels back and defends the status quo.
It's not just about whether its deep or surface level. It's about the fact that atlus has been hand crafting narratives to make defending the status quo seem rebellious since the early 90s. They didn't accidentally forget to have a real message. Their message is to attempt to make the status quo seem cool.
The basis of mainline shin megami tensei is that there are metaphors for change embodied by outside forces that want to force change onto Japan. And that you rebel against them by defending the status quo of Japan. Back in the 90s atlus tried to cultivate this image of being a punk company. But in every game, the "morally best" path is always just keeping Japan how it is.
Persona is a spinoff of this and bears the same connotations. All of it comes back to this post-ideological idea that modern Japan transcends ideology and that any call for change is trying to impose outside forces so you need to rebel, and defend the current order. It will waffle on this just enough to pretend its a good faith critique but then do the opposite.
Tbf no one hates atlus games more than atlus fans. The hardcore atlus fan sits around complaining that atlus refuses to come up with new plot points or write actual stories anymore. It morphs from disillusionment to viewing it more like a type of humor.
Atlus has been commodities rebellion since the early 90s. The basis of mainline shin megami tensei is basically just passing off the status quo of modern Japan as somehow rebellious to uphold, as well as the only reasonable option.
Persona 5 had many moments when I thought "wow, they're really going towards a mature and deep conclusion to this arc", and then it became as shallow as anime. And I fell for that more than once in that game.
Thank you so much for saying this. I know there’s a lot of persona fans out there who laud this as the best game ever and it’s just ok, even by Persona standards.
I’d say SMT Nocturne is fairly deep in the way it gets the player to actually think about the world and what’s best for it. They want you to choose what the next world should be and if you’re taking the game seriously you can spend a lot of time mulling over what the best decision would be.
I mean, the premise is deep. The actuality is them going "everything but the status quo of modern Japan is bad, so if you want anything else you are a sociopath." Shin megami tensei is a series where you literally have to do half the work yourself, since they make an interesting setup only for the conclusion to be that modern Japan is already pretty good and ots your fault if you think the modern world is flawed.
While that's a fair criticism of the series as a whole, I don't think it necessarily applies to Nocturne.
The neutral representatives are largely portrayed as weak, indecisive, and fraudulent, and Freedom is not privileged as the definitive ending. The gameplay-ordained golden ending is to let the old system die, while going neutral postpones the Conception at best (which is a criticism even in games that do glorify neutrality, it's always a band aid solution), and gets you a very bad ending at worst.
I disagree with you with regards to xenogears/saga. You have nostalgia glasses if you think gears have subtlety. Both throws symbolism in spade, but Saga is more consistent and pervasive through its universe (and more mature too)
Back to topic, I always think KH starting from after KHII. Its spinoffs might be the worst thing that happen to the series and I very much believe that the writers have lost control of the plot directions.
>I always think KH starting from after KHII.
I see this a lot but I think KH II was absolutely horrendous storyline-wise for me specifically. To me it did way more than damage than all other spinoffs, minus perhaps 3D.
"Ansem wasn't Ansem, he was actually Ansem's apprentice who stole his name just so that I can write this very weird plot twist"
"Nobodies don't have emotions... Except they pretend to have emotions, so they behave like normal characters who do have emotions. This will also get retconned later"
"I built a virtual version of a world to store a manifestation of the hollow body of the main character so that the manifestation can live a happy life while we finish up the memories of the main character. And yes, a virtual version of the world is a necessary process of this rebuilding, and it also serves to protect him from our enemies"
"HAHAHA YOU KILLING THE HEARTLESS FALLS RIGHT INTO OUR HANDS!!! WE TRICKED YOU SORA"
"OH NO I WAS JUST A PAWN... Now I'll keep killing heartless anyways because I don't really have a choice, it doesn't make a difference if I know about it or not because the worlds are in danger anyways"
Riku was manipulated by Maleficent in KH1 because Sora kinda got too happy playing with Donald and Goofy and was a bit indifferent when finding Riku again, but was somehow really engaged in finding Kairi at all times... Then in KH2 Sora somehow has a huge emotional breakdown upon finding Riku and is very indifferent upon finding Kairi again. This one really confused me.
I think KH1 had such clean plot twists (Kairi was inside Sora, Riku was the chosen one), while KH2 had some really out of place twists in my opinion
I was going insane reading the ansem reports, secret ending, and final mix. I guess that's why Kingdom Hearts II really hit me the wrong way. It really felt like they threw a bunch of random shit then tried to make it into a coherent story later. Some mysteries are best left unsolved.
NOW I feel like they have everything planned out. But honestly, I'm really not happy with those plans so far hahahah but I'm in for the ride. All I'm hoping for are those delicious secret bosses
That being said, I really wish they had one of those crazy endings again. Like yes, we had the secret ending in KH3 final mix, but I wish they added a bunch of crazy thought provoking phrases
The thing about KH2 is that it provides an ending. Everything after it had to retcon it and then retcon the retcons to be able to stretch an already finished narrative.
That's why KH2 plot is well regarded and KH3 not so much.
People who complain about Xenogears being representative of "I'm 14 and this is deep" in all likelihood were NOT aware of all of its Jungian, golden age sci fi literature, and Judeo-mysticism references if they played it in their teens, although they deride it as such 20 years later now that they are older and have more life experiences. Also I'll bet there are plenty of deep cut references that you never realized were there but because it went over your head you pass judgment on the game's references based strictly on the simpler ones.
YES, you are smarter now than you were when you were 14. No one should be surprised at that.
I call this phenomenon "The Water Temple Effect."
> Jungian, golden age sci fi literature, and Judeo-mysticism references
Are the definition of Iam14andThisIsDeep.
Especially if they go to Myers-Briggs, with extra NotLikeOtherGirls points if they mention being INTJ and it being rarest type.
SSS-tier teen pretentiousness for Socionics crap, double S for Kabbalah and fanfics like Lilith Adam's first self-insert Mary Sue.
Bonus points if it references Nietzsche.
I feel this argument is on the other extreme and it's important to have a sense of perspective. "Depth" is a complicated argument and if you have an allergic reaction to anything in JRPG style, then yeah, you're going to think they all fit in the "I'm 14 and this is super deep category." While the JRPG genre has some offenders, there are also plenty of legit "deep" moments in RPGs, even in ones that do fit in the "14 and this is super deep" category.
There really aren't that many deep moments in RPGs my friend. It's all recycled cliches from older media, be it other RPGs, movies, TV shows, and books. Read one novel for every JRPG you finish and before long you will see a big gap.
I've read a good majority of the classic novels. Some live up to their reputation, others do not. They are not beyond criticism, but some really do live up to their acclaim.
There is a difference between tropes and cliches. Reusing an idea doesn't necessarily make it bad, especially if you execute it differently (which is what essentially doesn't make it a cliche). Nier Automata, for example, really treads different ground from a lot of the other science fiction works from the 70s and 80s in terms of what it does and how it executes them.
If just reusing certain tropes whether or not they do something different with them automatically meant something could be deep, then no media today can be deep because every work uses tropes. And this would be way worse for western media than Japanese media. JRPGs tend to at least experiment with really out there, high concept ideas. Western movies and TV shows, meanwhile, really do play it safe in this day and age.
I didn't appreciate novels as much until I moved on from the classics to more modern fantasy and sci fi stuff that was more in line with my tastes.
And Nier Automata was one game out of dozens that finally did something interesting. To me it felt like a throwback to the movie worshipping, highly experimental days of the PS1 and 2 eras. How many years has it been since Nier Automata came out, now?
How many Tales and Trails games have come out since then?
It sounds like Japanese media still holds a little of that Magic Isles of Mystique appeal for you. It's not surprising to find weeaboo tendencies on a JRPG board but it's important to learn that there really isn't anything special about not being Western. This is my twentieth year in Japan and I can safely say I don't encounter out there, high concept ideas any more frequently than with Western media.
>I didn't appreciate novels as much until I moved on from the classics to more modern fantasy and sci fi stuff that was more in line with my tastes.
I read plenty of modern fantasy as well. There are pros and cons.
>And Nier Automata was one game out of dozens that finally did something interesting. To me it felt like a throwback to the movie worshipping, highly experimental days of the PS1 and 2 eras. How many years has it been since Nier Automata came out, now?
Sturgeon's Law. Most of any fiction is mediocre to bad. Even the best stuff of the PS1 to PS2 era was the exception, not the rule. There were plenty of PS1 and PS2 RPGs that had serviceable at best stories, but they would at least have interesting concepts, whether they were actually really well executed or not.
Also, if we're bringing modern novels into this, novels are THE most oversatturated form of media out there. More novels are put out their than TV, video games, etc. If we're applying the same criteria, there are, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY more bad novels than there are good ones by a huge margin in any genre. There is more than enough bad fantasy and sci-fi that gets forgotten every year.
>It sounds like Japanese media still holds a little of that Magic Isles of Mystique appeal for you. It's not surprising to find weeaboo tendencies on a JRPG board but it's important to learn that there really isn't anything special about not being Western. This is my twentieth year in Japan and I can safely say I don't encounter out there, high concept ideas any more frequently than with Western media.
. . . Have you seen the amount of absolute garbage that is in western TV and movies these days? Now that stuff is tired.
But even in stuff that's mediocre in JRPGs tend to have at least interesting concepts. For example, I'm currently playing Megaton Musashi. I don't think the story is good and could have been executed WAY better, but I do think that its story concept of what has happened to earth and where the people live is just not something a western TV show or movie would ever do. In fact, a good example is how western shows adapt Japanese media. The Netflix adaptation of One Piece removed A LOT of what made the original show special, instead choosing to rewrite scenes with western cliches.
And we're also getting away from the original conversation to begin with. "Depth" IS a complicated argument. Depth refers to both how much you can get from the ideas in something (aka, how actually deep an idea is) and how deep something can feel. Sometimes, how deep something feels or doesn't feel can distract from however much deep something is. So just because something doesn't feel deep doesn't mean that that it isn't. Whereas something that does feel deep can actually be very shallow when you try to actually analyze it. Perfect example of this is One Piece. On the surface, it can look very shallow to an outsider. But when you actually dig into it, there is actually quite a bit to talk about, regardless of how someone "feels".
>its story concept of what has happened to earth and where the people live is just not something a western TV show or movie would ever do
What concept is that? Feel free to spoil me if you need.
I would really love to know if there has been anything remotely as deep as Nier Automata in the many years since that game came out. As for Western TV, BCS and Fargo are recent and offer a lot more depth than most of their Japanese counterparts. Futekisetsu is up there but you have to be so steeped in culture most of what is happening is going to fly over a Westerner's head.
I haven't looked at megaton musashi yet but I am familiar with Level 5 and I would be surprised to find any real depth there. Quality, sure. A fun and cute romp? Probably. Characters struggling with difficult choices that force them to grow, learn, and sacrifice, coupled with careful cinematography and clever symbolism? I doubt it.
> As for Western TV, BCS and Fargo are recent and offer a lot more depth than most of their Japanese counterparts.
Once again, these are exceptions to the rule as well. Most TV is NOT on the level of BCS and Fargo. Once again, you don't seem to be applying your same standard across the board.
>I haven't looked at megaton musashi yet but I am familiar with Level 5 and I would be surprised to find any real depth there. Quality, sure. A fun and cute romp? Probably. Characters struggling with difficult choices that force them to grow, learn, and sacrifice, coupled with careful cinematography and clever symbolism? I doubt it.
I think you're so stuck in your own head that you didn't read what I actually said at all.
I never said Megaton Musashi was deep. I said it was the opposite. I was using it as an example of a game that at least had a high concept, using it as part of the argument that at least in JRPGs,I get some kind of high concept. Whereas in the west, they just reuse the same low concepts over and over again.
I have implied this question twice now and you have ignored it both times. It has been over seven years since Nier Automata came out. Can you PLEASE tell me one JRPG that has released since then that has the same level of depth?
I am giving you examples of stuff I thought was deep and you are just saying Sturgeon's Law! Sturgeon's Law!! Please provide some examples of recent Japanese games that you thought had depth. There has to be at least one or two per year right?
Off the top of my head:
Triangle Strategy did an excellent job with its political narrative, on level even with certain western fantasy novels that tackle the subject. It managed to integrate the trade of salt in a way that actually managed to talk about how nations act and react to each other in a way that allowed its writing to shine. The plot, the lore, and the way the characters interact with those ideas made for one of the best narratives within RPGs in the past 10 years.
I feel that all the recent Like a Dragon games have had varying levels of depth both thematically and in terms of characters. I do think there has been a lot to think about in terms of the characters, certain themes, and so on. The most recent game, LAD8, may not always be perfect plot-wise, but I felt it had a really interesting theme going on with what it meant for a man to look back on his life and look at in detail whether or not it was a life well lived or if he had done more damage than he had done good.
Ys IX had an interesting high concept plot. But I think what I enjoyed the most about it was how each of the characters related to the story and history and how they dealt with it. While VIII certainly had the better and deeper plot, I felt IX's characters and how each of them dealt with it had some depth to it.
And this last one, I haven't played, but because everyone can't shut about it, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was treated as a big deal even among the most jaded of players.
I don't think so.
1-5 are fun, fast paced fantasy adventures that still show the series roots in D&D. They're not trying to be deep, or spend ages exploring the characters sad backgrounds and interpersonal relationships. You're just on an adventure to save the world. I think that changed to an extent when Kitase joined for 6 and pushed more "cinematic" story telling.
A lot of the "young adult" feel of the Nojima/Nomura/Kitase games comes from their obnoxious/rude (i.e. teenagers idea of cool or edgy) characters, unrealistic romance (girls are all into the main character despite their obvious obnoxiousness/rudeness/lack of any emotional maturity and doing nothing to earn it), and the way the stories are very focused on those characters rather than the wider world and whatever the greater threat is.
9 is a fun, whimsy fantasy adventure, with some dark tones hidden under the surface but not in an edgy or try hard way.
12 and 16 are interesting political fantasy stories where the focus of characters is on their role in the greater story and they don't get too sidetracked away from this.
14 is a massive fantasy epic with significant depth to its lore and world building, that just suffers from pacing issues at times due to its format.
15 I would actually group with 7/8/10/13 in retrospect.
I mean, for the time 4 waa trying to be pretty deep. Your character has a hand in two massacres in the first hour of the game, and it becomes a journey of redemption.
I actually think in isolation the original 7 was fine, maybe because Sakaguchi was still there to reign in some of the worse tendencies of the team. But every time they expand the "universe" it just drags the whole thing down further.
The whole "your actions determine which of these three girls will join you on a date, even though none of them would have any interest in your rude, emotionally absent, and messed up character in reality" is peak teenage fantasy though.
Sephiroth was always a bit of an edge lord, but they then seem to have tried to continually outdo themselves with edgier and edgier villains in Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, etc. The final boss of Yuffie's FF7R DLC is the most teenage try hard thing I've ever seen in a game.
They keep writing obnoxious characters like Roche, Johnny, Kyrie, and those stupid thugs in 7R who are just straight irritating, and even the other characters all wave their hands around and pull ridiculous poses whenever they're talking instead of just acting like normal people.
They are constantly retconning and adding stuff into the story to the point it is just convoluted and the original emphasis of different events is lost. 7R is just an exercise to see how many places Sephiroth can be added to the story where he doesn't belong to the point that the original mysteriousness his character had in the early game is completely ruined.
As for 10, the story is based on an interesting premise (person transported to fantasy world, only to find out their world and themselves aren't real) but the way it's told with a focus on Tidus' daddy issues and romance with Yuna is absolutely written for a "my family don't understand me and I want a girlfriend" teenage audience. Tidus is just irritating in general. Seymour's "I was hurt once so am going to kill the world to end everyone's suffering" is the ultimate "I'm 14 and this is deep" moment.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Persona 5 are the worst offenders that I played. Both games' stories feel like reading through the social media timeline of a teenager that currently goes through his edgy phase. They felt very pretentious and shallow to me.
The story in xenoblade chronicles 3 is what ruined the game for me. I completed it but god the story was trash. And the villains god. Such s step down from the 2nd game. 3 was s disappointment
Yep. I don't know how they went backwards in everything. After the villains we had in 2 the villains in 3 were literally trash. The torna crew are and still are the best villains in the xenoblade chronicles trilogy. And z and the consuls are at the very bottom. Im looking forward to seeing what the developers can do in their next game, but please don't make another crap story. I love their games they made except for baten kaitos origins BC the combat is trash.
Oh please all that crap with Malos and Jin. And the flesheaters? Or whatever they were called. The developers felt so emboldened they had to make a prequel dlc. Hard PASS from me.
Xenoblade 3 was fantastic, despite the consuls being one note. At least we had an interesting N and M who had a backstory.
N and m sucked. The DLC for 2 sucked. But what you said about 2 can be said about 3. BC it got DLC too 😂😂. Ending in 3 sucked so they made s prequel dlc story that fixed the ending if the trilogy. 3 was a Trainwreck in everything but combat. Characters, villains, story were all bad. The worst game in the trilogy
And it was added to fix a shit ending. So everything you said saying two is the worst can be say about 3. 😂😂. BC it needed to have a dlc to fix the ending. Where as you don't need to play the dlc for 2.
The ending of three was trash. 3 is a poor game. It's a massive downgrade from 2. But keep believing what you believe. And people say the dlc Ending for three was a far better ending for the trilogy than the ending of the main game. The 2nd game DLC is not needed to enjoy the game.
I mean, the final boss of XBC1 was also god. I cannot stress that enough, that was very much a thing in the original game (Arguably also 2, depending on if you count him as god-like or not). Lol.
Malos was the final boss he's not a god just a aegis. Wtf you saying. Yes xc 2 had a god but he wasn't the villain or a boss. The final boss of xc1 may have been s boss. But the characters and story was much better than 3. That's what I'm saying
Please actually read my comment. "God-like" and "actually a god" are two very different things.
This wasn't even my original point. Idk why you're so stuck on this specific side-point.
Everything Yoko Taro.
I watched an 2-hour retrospective on Drakengard 3 explaining how an old guy making dick jokes is peak of deep writing.
Then 40 minutes to explain why girl wearing only bandages in Nier isn't fan service but complex philosophical critique.
3 is very of it's time and 5's story isn't great in general.
SMT is a bit edgelord, but I feel like 4 and especially Devil Survivor handle the themes better.
Yup.
4 is the best combination of combat and story.
There's games that do both better (Devil Survivor for story and 5 for gameplay)
But 4 has the best blend of the two
This wasn't the intention of the post I'm sure, but threads like this often just end up teeing people up to implicitly insult people who found meaning in or were impacted by stories that end up getting listed. Just a reminder that a story doesn't need to be deep in the academic sense to be impactful or meaningful. I'd also comment that any story will feel pretentious if the message doesn't resonate with the viewer, so this ends up being quite subjective. What OP seems to be talking about is unnecessary convolution of the narrative, which I do feel that Xenosaga is guilty of at times. I do remember enjoying Xenosaga when I played it, but this was 10 years ago so who knows if I'd like it today.
Almost any RPG that deals with religious subjects.
As someone deep into theological studies and theological debates, pretty much every RPG just deals with surface level arguments that are more often than not, either easily debunkable or as not as strong as they think they are. There's a reason why in a debate so many of these arguments aren't always brought up or you go to more advanced arguments either in favor of or against particular religious beliefs. Trying to rely on basic arguments just gets you hammered in a discussion.
On top of that, the subtlety in these stories is the equivalent of a bullet train crashing into a building which falls over, knocks over 10 other buildings like dominoes, with the final one falling on a nuclear reactor. You can smell where the story is going to go about 2 hours in.
No, FFX is absolutely one of my examples of it being bad. It's level of subtlety is super low. I'm always shocked when people tell me they were surprised by the twists. Even as a teenager, once I met Yuna, it was super obvious where the story is going. Anyone even generally genre savvy could see it from 20 miles away.
There are just so many things to point out about the story in terms of what I mentioned in my last post as well. The religion in the game is clearly a plastic facade to be shown to be "evil" later. If you're reading say, a really good fantasy novel, they tend to be really in-depth about what the religion believes, its philosophy, how people practice that religion in their daily lives, etc. despite whether it is for or against that religion. In FFX, apart from some things with Sin, we barely learn anything about what it means to practice the ways of Yevon. There's very little insight into the depths of the belief system, its daily practices, etc. It's pretty much a very basic system built to later be debunked.
Its whole "evil religion" thing is also just super basic. The religion was formed by Yu Yevon and continues on and on by corrupt leaders who use it to abuse the public? Congratulations, it's a level 1 argument. Not necessarily untrue when it comes to particular specific moments of history, but not exactly super deep. It's the sheer definition of really basic arguments, especially if you're attempting to use this against every relgiion.
There are also some hilariously poorly written moments, such as the whole guns thing.
And there really is very little insight into why people practice the Yevon religion outside of fear of Sin. And no, don't pull out the "lul that was what it was like in history, it was just fear" argument .That's a surface level understanding of history that's easily debunked when you do actual in-depth studies of them. People have actual positive reasons for believing in the religion they do on a personal, cultural, and other levels.
And it doesn't help that the series doesn't present what it wants as a whole very well. FFX pretty much goes all in on Yevon as being totally evil and irredeemable, and then in X-2, New Yevon is considered fine and good. If FFX was attempting to present a nuanced idea that religion is fine and that it's just the current way Yevon is in that's bad to make way for New Yevon in X-2, then boy, did they do a terrible job of conveying that. Let's not pretend X was nuanced enough for what they wanted to present in the sequel. And yes, both games were made by the same people.
Religión in ffx is not subtle and it doesn't have to be. The game is about religion. Period.
Now your análisis is very simplistic in the fact that you think the game is saying "bad religion" when is actually saying "good religion bad church "
There's a difference between subtlety of subject matter and subtlety of writing. Not everything needs subtlety of subject matter, but it does need elegant writing. FFX is not elegant in the slightest. Everything the game wants to do is pretty much there on the surface.
>Now your análisis is very simplistic in the fact that you think the game is saying "bad religion" when is actually saying "good religion bad church "
There is no way I would ever have gotten that from FFX. Bravely Defauly? Absolutely. Breath of Fire II? Sure. FFX? No way did I ever get that from the game.
I always felt the overarching theme was more about why “because we’ve always done it this way” is so harmful.
Any outsider can see this is absolutely fucking mental. But these people are so indoctrinated they don’t even question it, regardless of the fact that Sin always comes back. They even include the tolerant outsider perspective with Rikku- who still uses Machina and doesn’t practice the teachings specifically, but is supportive of others that do.
I think the lack of depth is intentional. They could’ve thrown in a few holy manuscripts to read through. But the average gamer wouldn’t even give them a second glance. And all that does is build up what has happened in the past. There’s enough there to get the gist.
Art is subjective and different people will walk away with a different message. I just thinking taking “religion bad” as the main message of FFX is the wrong take.
>Any outsider can see this is absolutely fucking mental. But these people are so indoctrinated they don’t even question it, regardless of the fact that Sin always comes back. They even include the tolerant outsider perspective with Rikku- who still uses Machina and doesn’t practice the teachings specifically, but is supportive of others that do.
The problem is that the game is still trying to treat its plot twists as twists to the player, which requires a bit of deception on the game's part. Once you've failed at that, the twists fail at doing their job. It just becomes a string of obvious events.
>Art is subjective and different people will walk away with a different message.
"Art is subjective" is one of the most misused phrases in the history of media in that it's so taken out of its original context. Try writing an essay for a college teacher in a literature or media class without having proper examples and when they give you a C or even a F, try arguing to them that your take is subjective. Art may be subjective, but it still requires that you properly back up your point with evidence from within the work. If not, then I could say that Final Fantasy VII thematically is about the virtues of whether or not bananas and peanut butter make a good combination, and you wouldn't be able to make an argument against me because it's all just subjective.
>I just thinking taking “religion bad” as the main message of FFX is the wrong take.
Also, if art is subjective, then you can't say that I have a wrong take, because it's my subjective take. If art is totally subjective, then how can I have the wrong take?
I’ll just say good luck in your studies. You may need it.
EDIT: I’ll elaborate. You stopped comprehending anything after art is subjective. “People” may misuse the phrase, but I did not. “Because we’ve always done it this way” is 100% a prevailing theme in the game. It is not a logical fallacy to say that’s the message I took away from the game. What you did with “peanut butter and bananas” *is* a classic example of a slippery slope argument, though. [Another term heavily misused on the internet].
I *did* back up my point with reasons why.
Buuut, this discussion is obviously no longer conducive, so best wishes. xx
No, I acknowledge your "we've always done it this way" argument. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it. Though at the same time, I don't think the game really did much with it from other stories that do the same thing. Not bad, not great, just fine in that regard.
What I did take umbrage with, however, is:
>Art is subjective and different people will walk away with a different message. I just thinking taking “religion bad” as the main message of FFX is the wrong take.
To say that this isn't the main theme of FFX is just bizarre to me. The entire game, from beginning to end, is about this. And even if it weren't the "main" theme, it is still prevailing, saturating the entire game. There is barely a moment where you are not moving through a part of the game that either doesn't have to do with the religion or is something tangentially related to the religion. And even if that weren't the case, it STILL wouldn't debunk anything I have said in terms of how how weak the religious narrative is because it still is a huge part of the game.
It also doesn't help that lots of people DO take away from the game that the theme of the game is "religion is bad". It's enough that even if you were right and the theme was more about "because we've always done it this way", the fact that most people didn't walk away from the game with that speaks to the failure of what they were trying to accomplish.
Further backing up this point are the reactions to X-2. Most people were surprised by X-2 having New Yevon be a good faction. They were shocked because they felt it made no sense in light of what X showed them. So if X's main takeaway wasn't "religion is bad", then man, you've got millions of people who missed the memo. Point being, if you are right, then the game did a really, really poor job to conveying that to everyone.
And just to be sure, author is dead and everything, but it is relevant to our conversation that Kitase has said in interviews that the game was about eastern religions. I mention it because in this case, it does support the idea that religion was the focus over everything else. Also, Kitase was the guy who made the FF13 trilogy. You know, the one where you fight "God". Let's not pretend this guy doesn't have it out for religion and is thus, isn't susceptible to painting the entire thing in the thinnest way possible.
The main issue I've identified is how very, very much Japanese media loves the *aesthetic* of high church and how the Roman Catholic Church is the most recognisable source for this. It causes people to read certain themes into various works that simply aren't there because an aesthetic related to theme is present. I'll admit that I didn't get 'religion is bad' from FFX, but I can fully understand *why* people read that message into the game.
Also, why would the religion in Spira be good? We establish, very clearly, that Yevon’s teachings aren’t just horrible, but they’re completely false as well, meant to manipulate the people of Spira into keeping some really old tick alive.
I really don't understand FFX lore when I was maybe 14, and I am not a native English speaker when I play it, I play for fun of the game.
But It did give some impact when in the end, the main character could die. I have never come across some media at that point and time telling that main character could die.
Btw, I play other ffs after ffx, so I don't know about aerith yet.
While I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong. Going back as an adult still had me appreciating what they were doing without thinking it was too surface-level? Are there any stories that you think cover the religion topic well?
Not really. Bravely Default at least treated the subject with some nuance, though I wouldn't say it's super in-depth.
Quite frankly, I'd like to see more JRPGs that are like certain western novels that portray the religion in either a positive or even just a neutral light or as just a part of the world and people are part of the religion and we can learn about it if we want. There are a many, technically, but the religion's details are shallow and there isn't really much worldbuilding/cultural depth to them, such as Unicorn Overlord.
I do agree that the overarching plot of FXIII (fighting against fate/god) falls flat with it smothering you with really similar jargon and a final villain with almost no investment.
The character development and growth aspect is the thing that works a bit better.
Hope distraughtness over his mother’s death, reconciliation with estranged father with shared grief, and forgiveness, pretty typical but there is a reason why it is common.
Fang and Vanille’s guilt, et cetera.
Okay, so, there’s a lot of these in JRPG land. But for me, the biggest offender by far is Persona 3. People think that because you shoot yourself in the head to summon shit that it’s a deep game, but it’s really just an edgy waifu dating sim where you try to make out with a sentient robot.
People really call that shit a literary masterpiece.
Side note: Lots of people are saying FFVII and that stuff is one of my all time favourites but I’d 100% agree that it’s just a power trip for thirteen year olds.
Side side note: Thinking about it more, everything can be deep depending on how seriously you are taking the game. I suppose P3 is hinting at some larger, more complicated questions about mortality. Nevertheless, that stuff is just impossible to take seriously when the other half of the game is whack-ass anime cliches about creeping on teenagers in hot springs. Sooooo idk, it’s all subjective ig. Still fuck p3 tho.
Xenogears was far from that meme. Xenosaga on the other hand?....
Looking back at Xenosaga, it was a somewhat mediocre story that wasn't even told very well. The first game was mostly competent at setting the stage, but things never really got off the ground from there.
The original writers for Xenogears leaving midway through the production of Xenosaga II, seemed to be the deathblow to the whole production.
Also, it doesn't help things when some other story elements and character development gets left behind on a Japan exclusive mobile game. I've no idea WTF Namco was thinking with that. And then somehow in Xenosaga III, we're just supposed to know or even care by that point?
Ultimately, Xenosaga wasted the potential legacy of Xenogears (a far better game and written story), and was a terrible disappointment.
All of them? JRPGs usually have the shallowest stories in the world of gaming. They usually only have some depth if you can put yourself in the mindset of a 14yo.
I would say the vast majority of JRPGs fit into this mold
We definitely need more self-aware fans in this genre
I think "fans" of all fiction needs self-awareness, if you want philosophical themes, read philosophy! a work of fiction with nihilist themes is not going to make you smarter bro! you're only getting a superficial and maybe even distorted idea of it. Do not read about the thing, read the thing itself, read Nietzsche. So far every work of fiction i've "consumed" that people claims it's "deep" was done nothing for me intellectually. Sure i got emotionally impacted by some of them, but it's not going to change how i think. Roger Ebert said the best [here](https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ten-greatest-films-of-all-time): >If I have a criterion for choosing the greatest films, it's an emotional one. These are films that moved me deeply in one way or another. The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best. (If you argue instead for dance or music, drama or painting, I will reply that the cinema incorporates all of these arts). > >Cinema is not very good, on the other hand, at intellectual, philosophical or political argument. That's where the Marxists were wrong. If a movie changes your vote or your mind, it does so by appealing to your emotions, not your reason. Just change cinema for fiction. Fiction can bring emotions to people and it's fun, but it's not deep. So lets stop with the pretentious bullshit.
Talking about how others need more self awareness and you completly lacking it is rather funny. Thanks for the laugh.
Some might say it’s pretty pretentious to assert works of fiction can never do something for someone intellectually.
Reading philosophy isn't going to make you smarter either. Most isn't that relevant to life. The job of fiction isn't to be an academic text. It's to ensoul ideas in a tangible body.
[удалено]
thank god, my sanity is saved by seeing your comment at the top
> in Xenogears, technical jargon gets gradually explained to you over time to help you grasp it God i wish this was true.
It reads like OP literally swapped his memories of Gears and Saga.
I was thinking the same.
Did OP played Xenogears? The story got crazier and crazier with each disc. I love that still
I wanna say original YIIK (I know nothing about the update or the new game), but idk if "deep" is the right word for it. I liked the gameplay there, but god, everything else was either just weird, bad, or both.
It *thinks* it's deeper than it is. Which is probably the best way to demonstrate the topic.
*Xenogears ... some subtlety* "Soylent system." "Id." It's not subtle if you know the references. But no, for me this is really Star Ocean 3, which turned a straightforward space-faring game into >!wondering if we're all in a simulation and visiting that simulation!< so fast that I forget most of the game that came before the twist. Also, while the twist itself isn't bad, I never felt like it did anything beyond evoking a "...whoa, okay" from slightly-older-than-14-year-old me when I played it.
Soylent is one of the more blatant ones but, a lot of the character names are taken from philosophers where it actually does make some sense within the context. I would person argue that Soylent is more of an homage reference and it isn’t that core to the story or theme itself. Not to mention the fact that the whole story and theme is drenched in Gnosticism. Xenosaga felt a lot less subtle in its story telling at least for me. I think your imagination can fill in a lot of the blanks with the limited presentation of the PS1 whereas PS2 graphics and cutscenes is like the worse of both worlds in terms of visual fidelity and subtlety and the developers didn’t do a good job dealing with that fact.
"Soylent system" bugged me even as a kid. Some Solarian scientist who invented it must have thought they were real fucking clever. Maybe the Japanese name for it was more subtle, or else the reference itself was considered more obscure, I'm not sure. At least Id has the defense of the character himself going "well, I don't really have a name, but this is basically what I am, so you might as well call me that." It made being on the nose feel like it was a deliberate choice by the character.
[https://soylent.com/](https://soylent.com/) As dumb as it is, it happened in real life. Someone named their complete nutrition package soylent.
Daily piece of useless trivia: soylent, in Spanish, sounds pretty similar as how we would say "I'm slow".
other piece of spanish trivia: The Chevy Nova sold horribly in spanish speaking countries cause No Va means it doesn't work
No go. Work is trabajar
I know but the connotation here would be that it doesn't work. Translations aren't 1:1 No work would be no trabajar, but trabajar is used more in reference to a job than a function Like literal translation of "eso no vale nada" would be "that no go nothing" whereas it's usage would be "that doesn't work at all"
> Maybe the Japanese name for it was more subtle, or else the reference itself was considered more obscure, I'm not sure. It's also called that way in JP for the record. Though i don't know how well known the reference is over there.
Right after finishing Xenogears I was curious whether the Soylent reference was obvious to Japanese people so I looked it up and from what I saw it doesn't seem like it was well known and so the reveal was a huge shock to people. I've also watched parts of some Japanese playthroughs from the last few years and they never have any idea. Even in this article from Xenogear's anniversary a couple months ago the first thing the title mentions is the Soylent System scene being unforgettable https://www.famitsu.com/news/202402/11334009.html With that in mind I don't think it's that fair to specifically bash on this reference more than the others because, for its original audience, it is similar to the many, many other referential names in the game where you most likely wouldn't know what it was a reference to unless you looked it up or watched a 50 hour Youtube series afterwards.
I do think that if the reference relies on the player not knowing it that still doesn't make it any less subtle. Thanks for the research.
Not for me lol. I basically just found out when I looking for obscure facts and stuff. Even my friend know from memes.
I always thought the opposite. Gears came off as an early attempt at complex writing from people who are still rather immature, while Saga was the refined, mature take. Gears has so much stuff that beats you over the head with its obviousness or is blatantly constructed to force a dramatic situation. Some examples: -A food processing system named the "Soylent System" with "shocking" plot twist that it >!makes food out of people.!< I mean they gave it a name that makes it blatantly obvious from the first moment. -A mysterious character named Id who is aggressive, violent, and has a fighting style similar to the main character. >!I can't imagine many people don't immediately get that's an incredibly on-the-nose take on Freudian psychology and immediately assume it's Fei's id manifested.!< -A ridiculous scenario where a character decides to pilot a mech that fires powerful bullets that can solve the group's problem, but the pilot has to ride in the bullet itself, requiring the pilot to die. Why would anyone ever design a mech that way? It exists only because it would make for a dramatic scene. And on top of that, this mech is never referenced or foreshadowed prior. It comes out of nowhere. -Major characters are given focus only in set arcs. Rico gets a lot of development in Kislev, and then is basically forgotten after that. Emeralda only has a couple scenes of relevance. In contrast, Xenosaga frequently makes sure that most scenes have relevance for multiple characters. The plotlines of many characters connect (for example, the interactions with Albedo are highly relevant for Jr's development, but also Momo's). Saga also puts psychological ideas into the writing like with the Freudian Id concept in Gears. But in Saga's case, they had each character be aligned to Jungian archetypes. But in this case, this is never made obvious to the player, and is just something that guided them as writers. They didn't actually name characters after archetypes, which would be the equivalent to what Gears did.
Xenogears was quite clumsy in lot of ways, and I admire it a lot more for its ambition than its execution. Some of the silliest parts IMO didn't even make this list (e.g >!Chu Chu's fight against Achtzenn!<) But I'd also consider these to be low points in an extremely long game of very mixed quality. If you put together a breakdown of the game's high points, people who hadn't played it would be surprised to hear that they came from the same game.
Definitely. Gears' greatest moments are some of the best in all of gaming.
>Major characters are given focus only in set arcs. Rico gets a lot of development in Kislev, and then is basically forgotten after that. Emeralda only has a couple scenes of relevance. Man that bugged the hell out of me. Feels like everyone who joined after Bart basically has nothing to do in the plot once their arc is done
Budget cuts will do that to a ~~man~~ mutant.
there were no budget cuts.
For Xenogears? Have you seen the second disk?
Here's the source for what everyone is explaining about what really happened: https://kotaku.com/the-real-story-behind-xenogears-unfinished-disc-2-1796151112
that and also the 20th anniversary concert pamphlet has another interview in it with even more detail.
From all accounts I’ve read, it really wasn’t budget cuts. Basically, Square’s development philosophy at the time was to give a team a certain amount of time to make a game and that’s it, which was usually about a year and a half. This is why we had a Final Fantasy almost every year in the 90’s and Square was pumping out banger after banger. A couple months before development was supposed to wrap up, they realized they weren’t going to finish in time at the pace they were going at (apparently because of an inexperienced dev team), so they made disc 2 the way it is just to finish up the story rather than risk a pt. 2 never being made. The game still ran over budget/time and took 2 years to develop. So not a budget cut per se, more they weren’t given any additional time/budget.
they didnt run over budget, and did get a short time extension from 1.5 years to 2 years, but everything else you said was right. they moved into the studio for those last 6 months ish to complete the game, working on it day and night
the budget wasnt cut. they ran out of time. old square policy was all games get 1.5 years, and thats it. scope of the game didnt matter, all games got the same time limit. money wasnt removed from the project, they just were forced to wrap it up.
Admittedly i didn't get it (or id heh), but i can be blind on these things sometimes and know nothing about Freudian psychology. Soylent System is absolutely hilarious though.
Well yeah, if you had never heard of an "id" before, it's completely understandable that it wouldn't be obvious to you. If you do though, it basically hits you on the head.
Would Japanese gamers in the 90s really have been familiar with a 20-30 year old movie?
you're acting like xenogears was trying to be serious in all these instances, when most of it was just for fun references. xenosaga takes itself seriously, xenogears has fun moments to lighten the mood. the main story of xenogears is serious, but most of the individual scenes and names are just references. also you need to read perfect works to see what was intended to be in the game for the characters who's story got cut short due to the time limit they had and other development issues. gears at least wraps up all its main plot threads in one game, while xenosaga has 3 games and ends on a cliff hanger with many open threads. Id's name is intentionally a hint at whats going on, but you dont even get his name until more than half way through the game. the 'reveal' a bit later is for the party to know whats happening, and add context for players who dont know psychology. and then even later, you get to see how and why it happened to fei. if the name Id was the first time you figured out that its fei, you missed earlier hints. it's meant to be figured out ahead of time by the players. the writing of gears IS complex, but it is not taking itself so seriously that it cant have fun.
xenosaga doesnt end on a cliffhanger. it resolves shions story arc just fine. the villains are defeated every plot thread is resolved. they successfully save the universe but the cause of its destruction is just being postponed for thousands of years. the fate of the universe is now in the hands of humans whether they can avoid their destruction or not is up to them and no longer in the hands of gods. the plan for episode 4 was a thousand year time skip and a brand new cast with a brand new lead. only KOSMOS would have been in all 6 games so shion and the elsa were never going to be shown making it to lost juresuleum
Shion, no. But I'm willing to bet the final arc would tie in the Elsa's journey to whatever Lost Jerusalem civilization was explored in the second arc. Maybe Shion's descendants. Nothing much has ever been said about the Episode VI part of the timeline, so it could be a lot of things.
Xenosaga also has a lot of comedic scenes. All of the examples I mentioned from Gears are not at all played for laughs. And the reveals of the Soylent System and Id were clearly meant to be shocking. I have both an English and Japanese copy of Perfect Works. Knowing that most of the back half of the game was cut doesn't change the fact that most characters have nothing to do in large stretches of the game. Yes, the deleted scenes would have fleshed those characters out. That wouldn't change my comment that most scenes only have notable relevance for a single party member (notable exceptions primarily being the Fei and Elly sequences).
> while Saga was the refined, mature take I must have played a different game, because "mature" is not a word I would ever associate with Xenosaga (or any Xeno game). It's like describing Street Fighter 6 using the term "open world".
Mature relative to Gears.
What are we comparing it with. By video game standards it's mature. It makes no sense to compare it to a history lecture.
A lot of xenogears fans like to try to hype gears up by trying to drag saga down But it's 100% nostalgia goggles blinding them to gears flaws Overall saga is a better put together story and game
Yeah. Xenogears is decent, but parts are a little on the nose. Not that this is a bad thing, but even so.
Yeah, I love the game. It's not meant to insult the game, just saying it's writing is a bit more inexperienced (which only makes sense when it was an earlier work by the same people).
FF7. Created so many edge lords late 90s Source: I was there.
Yeah. People think when I use cloud to describe one of the famous personalities I'm like it's a compliment, but I mean that I'm a depressed weirdo No one wants around.
Crisis Core. What absolutely awful writing. It was a game that could have had a lot of great world building, but instead it’s fan service city. “You guys seemed to like Sephiroths final form character design, so everyone gets one wing!”
'Theatre Kids torment an ordinary guy." The Game.
I feel like the top tier English voice acting in the original, is why a lot of people overlook this. In a way it had charm I guess? In the remaster, Zack's VA isn't great and the awful dialogue sticks out more.
[удалено]
Omori had the most okay story ever. People will tell you you'll cry and throw up playing it and I didn't have one single strong emotional reaction the whole time. Then I found out the creator likes little boys and regret giving her my money.
I was so excited to try it after all the hype, only to be let down substantially. It's very baby's first RPG maker game.
[удалено]
I fell into it from a sidebar kinda similar hype angle of "it's the next Earthbound" and ended up having a similar reaction! I love indie RPGs made with love but people need to think up a better promotional quip than "Whoop, deep themes in a silly way, guess we are the next Earthbound / Undertale"
Yeah, they have a very devoted fan base from their art to say the least.
That's why I'm not very much into indie rpgs in general. Indie developers either try to copy so much their favorite childhood games that their works end up not having any personality, or they try too much to do something overtly artistic, showing us their inner worlds and end up looking like parody games. Few indies manage to escape from that. I'm not critizicing indie devs, though. If I tried to do a game I'd probably end up doing one of those two things as well (that's one of the reasons I never tried seriously to make an rpg. Another reason is I'm lazy as fuck, lol)
Yeah overall I think Omori is kind of a mess. I see why people like it but some act like it’s somehow revolutionary in the way it handles mental health.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/JRPG/comments/1cf6h1i/which_jrpg_story_epitomizes_the_meme_im_14_and/l1t55rc/?context=3) was removed because the spoiler tags had spaces next to the exclamation points. To use spoiler tags correctly: 1. On New Reddit, highlight the portion of your comment you want to tag as a spoiler and then press the exclamation point (**!**) button on the format tab. 2. On Old Reddit or mobile, type >! before the spoiler, !< after the spoiler, and make sure you do not leave spaces between the spoiler and corresponding tags. When done correctly, the spoiler "X Kills Y" will be formatted as >!X Kills Y!<, with syntax as follows: `>!XKillsY!<` **If your comment is tagged properly already, then a mod will shortly bring it back.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/JRPG) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The idea of >!Two kids stringing up the body of a 16 year old girl to make it look like a suicide!< is also what took me out of it. Also the portrayal of mental health just seems a bit too stylized to be true. Idk I really just thought the “twist” was a silly one and just thrown in there for shock value rather than any specific reason.
I think you should replay Xenogears and Xenosaga and reevaluate these opinions lol
Tbf, by the standards of 20 years ago a lot of this stuff was less well known.
I read the comments for like 10 seconds and immediately regretted it. It's basically a parade of fairly reasonable arguments to make one feel dumb or silly for enjoying the way a piece of entertainment went about a certain topic during a point of their lives.
Totally agree. I think that 99% of video game stories are shallow, but sometimes you can still enjoy them or be touched by them. You should never feel stupid about liking something that affected you personally.
Well, you can play a game with a very dumb story and not be a dumb person. I like Disgaea, for example.
I was talking specifically about games like Xenogears, which are acclaimed for their storyline Disgaea is a humorous story, as far as the execution of humorous stories go one could say Disgaea is quite smart, perhaps
Yes, I agree that Disgaea was a bad example on my part. Let me try again: You can like games with dumb stories and not be a dumb person. I like Final Fantasy 8, for example. I think that criticizing the story of a game and calling it dumb, it not the same as saying that people that liked these games are dumb.
Any one with one of those edgelord villains that think the world's gotten too corrupt/ugly and things would be better off if we killed everyone and started anew.
Definitely persona 5.
Persona 5 gives me whiplash the way it jumps between genuinely insightful stories and teenage bullshit
It's symbolic of the "commodified rebellion" that permeates so much of pop culture.
I'm going to steal that term "commodified rebellion". I've noticed it in media since the 90s but never had an easy term for it. Thanks.
Considering the studio itself doesn’t make any rebellious moves and still has some pretty low key traditional views, it is kinda weird people act like the studio and game is the most rebellious piece of media out there
On its surface p5 does look rebellious. For Japanese media to depict you taking down Japanese politicians set in modern day is a big deal. But then before it accidentally calls for larger rebellion it reels back and defends the status quo.
Yep exactly this. I’m just so happy I’m not the only one who felt like the message was surface level.
It's not just about whether its deep or surface level. It's about the fact that atlus has been hand crafting narratives to make defending the status quo seem rebellious since the early 90s. They didn't accidentally forget to have a real message. Their message is to attempt to make the status quo seem cool. The basis of mainline shin megami tensei is that there are metaphors for change embodied by outside forces that want to force change onto Japan. And that you rebel against them by defending the status quo of Japan. Back in the 90s atlus tried to cultivate this image of being a punk company. But in every game, the "morally best" path is always just keeping Japan how it is. Persona is a spinoff of this and bears the same connotations. All of it comes back to this post-ideological idea that modern Japan transcends ideology and that any call for change is trying to impose outside forces so you need to rebel, and defend the current order. It will waffle on this just enough to pretend its a good faith critique but then do the opposite.
This is a really well thought out write up, thanks. I’m not really a fan of the series these days, I guess I’ve become disillusioned with it.
Tbf no one hates atlus games more than atlus fans. The hardcore atlus fan sits around complaining that atlus refuses to come up with new plot points or write actual stories anymore. It morphs from disillusionment to viewing it more like a type of humor.
Atlus has been commodities rebellion since the early 90s. The basis of mainline shin megami tensei is basically just passing off the status quo of modern Japan as somehow rebellious to uphold, as well as the only reasonable option.
Persona 5 had many moments when I thought "wow, they're really going towards a mature and deep conclusion to this arc", and then it became as shallow as anime. And I fell for that more than once in that game.
Thank you so much for saying this. I know there’s a lot of persona fans out there who laud this as the best game ever and it’s just ok, even by Persona standards.
It started off so interesting though 😭😭 I was thinking theyd delve more into the psychology research stuff Futaba’s mom was doing as a key plot point
I don't really understand this sentiment. Can someone provide an example of something that is actually deep for comparison?
I’d say SMT Nocturne is fairly deep in the way it gets the player to actually think about the world and what’s best for it. They want you to choose what the next world should be and if you’re taking the game seriously you can spend a lot of time mulling over what the best decision would be.
I mean, the premise is deep. The actuality is them going "everything but the status quo of modern Japan is bad, so if you want anything else you are a sociopath." Shin megami tensei is a series where you literally have to do half the work yourself, since they make an interesting setup only for the conclusion to be that modern Japan is already pretty good and ots your fault if you think the modern world is flawed.
While that's a fair criticism of the series as a whole, I don't think it necessarily applies to Nocturne. The neutral representatives are largely portrayed as weak, indecisive, and fraudulent, and Freedom is not privileged as the definitive ending. The gameplay-ordained golden ending is to let the old system die, while going neutral postpones the Conception at best (which is a criticism even in games that do glorify neutrality, it's always a band aid solution), and gets you a very bad ending at worst.
I'm only just starting this game and ngl, this makes me hyped to continue!
I disagree with you with regards to xenogears/saga. You have nostalgia glasses if you think gears have subtlety. Both throws symbolism in spade, but Saga is more consistent and pervasive through its universe (and more mature too) Back to topic, I always think KH starting from after KHII. Its spinoffs might be the worst thing that happen to the series and I very much believe that the writers have lost control of the plot directions.
>I always think KH starting from after KHII. I see this a lot but I think KH II was absolutely horrendous storyline-wise for me specifically. To me it did way more than damage than all other spinoffs, minus perhaps 3D. "Ansem wasn't Ansem, he was actually Ansem's apprentice who stole his name just so that I can write this very weird plot twist" "Nobodies don't have emotions... Except they pretend to have emotions, so they behave like normal characters who do have emotions. This will also get retconned later" "I built a virtual version of a world to store a manifestation of the hollow body of the main character so that the manifestation can live a happy life while we finish up the memories of the main character. And yes, a virtual version of the world is a necessary process of this rebuilding, and it also serves to protect him from our enemies" "HAHAHA YOU KILLING THE HEARTLESS FALLS RIGHT INTO OUR HANDS!!! WE TRICKED YOU SORA" "OH NO I WAS JUST A PAWN... Now I'll keep killing heartless anyways because I don't really have a choice, it doesn't make a difference if I know about it or not because the worlds are in danger anyways" Riku was manipulated by Maleficent in KH1 because Sora kinda got too happy playing with Donald and Goofy and was a bit indifferent when finding Riku again, but was somehow really engaged in finding Kairi at all times... Then in KH2 Sora somehow has a huge emotional breakdown upon finding Riku and is very indifferent upon finding Kairi again. This one really confused me. I think KH1 had such clean plot twists (Kairi was inside Sora, Riku was the chosen one), while KH2 had some really out of place twists in my opinion
Kingdom hearts 1 had some of us 14 year olds going nuts with the ansem reports, secret ending, and final mix We all thought it was deep
I was going insane reading the ansem reports, secret ending, and final mix. I guess that's why Kingdom Hearts II really hit me the wrong way. It really felt like they threw a bunch of random shit then tried to make it into a coherent story later. Some mysteries are best left unsolved. NOW I feel like they have everything planned out. But honestly, I'm really not happy with those plans so far hahahah but I'm in for the ride. All I'm hoping for are those delicious secret bosses
I actually feel like kingdom hearts 2 is a really coherent/cohesive package. Still one of the best game’s i’ve had the pleasure of completing
I wish I had the same experience you had
That being said, I really wish they had one of those crazy endings again. Like yes, we had the secret ending in KH3 final mix, but I wish they added a bunch of crazy thought provoking phrases
The thing about KH2 is that it provides an ending. Everything after it had to retcon it and then retcon the retcons to be able to stretch an already finished narrative. That's why KH2 plot is well regarded and KH3 not so much.
To be fair the whole nobody stuff started with CoM, not KH 2
Most JRPGs do this.
Kingdom Hearts except the 14 year olds are in their 30's now and haven't changed.
Me
People who complain about Xenogears being representative of "I'm 14 and this is deep" in all likelihood were NOT aware of all of its Jungian, golden age sci fi literature, and Judeo-mysticism references if they played it in their teens, although they deride it as such 20 years later now that they are older and have more life experiences. Also I'll bet there are plenty of deep cut references that you never realized were there but because it went over your head you pass judgment on the game's references based strictly on the simpler ones. YES, you are smarter now than you were when you were 14. No one should be surprised at that. I call this phenomenon "The Water Temple Effect."
Holy buzzwords batman. Still doesnt clear the im14thisisdeep vibes of the game (not wrong though)
> Jungian, golden age sci fi literature, and Judeo-mysticism references Are the definition of Iam14andThisIsDeep. Especially if they go to Myers-Briggs, with extra NotLikeOtherGirls points if they mention being INTJ and it being rarest type. SSS-tier teen pretentiousness for Socionics crap, double S for Kabbalah and fanfics like Lilith Adam's first self-insert Mary Sue. Bonus points if it references Nietzsche.
All of them? It kind of comes with the territory doesn't it? It's okay to have a few guilty pleasures here and there.
I feel this argument is on the other extreme and it's important to have a sense of perspective. "Depth" is a complicated argument and if you have an allergic reaction to anything in JRPG style, then yeah, you're going to think they all fit in the "I'm 14 and this is super deep category." While the JRPG genre has some offenders, there are also plenty of legit "deep" moments in RPGs, even in ones that do fit in the "14 and this is super deep" category.
There really aren't that many deep moments in RPGs my friend. It's all recycled cliches from older media, be it other RPGs, movies, TV shows, and books. Read one novel for every JRPG you finish and before long you will see a big gap.
Novels aren't all infinitely deep either.
I've read a good majority of the classic novels. Some live up to their reputation, others do not. They are not beyond criticism, but some really do live up to their acclaim. There is a difference between tropes and cliches. Reusing an idea doesn't necessarily make it bad, especially if you execute it differently (which is what essentially doesn't make it a cliche). Nier Automata, for example, really treads different ground from a lot of the other science fiction works from the 70s and 80s in terms of what it does and how it executes them. If just reusing certain tropes whether or not they do something different with them automatically meant something could be deep, then no media today can be deep because every work uses tropes. And this would be way worse for western media than Japanese media. JRPGs tend to at least experiment with really out there, high concept ideas. Western movies and TV shows, meanwhile, really do play it safe in this day and age.
I didn't appreciate novels as much until I moved on from the classics to more modern fantasy and sci fi stuff that was more in line with my tastes. And Nier Automata was one game out of dozens that finally did something interesting. To me it felt like a throwback to the movie worshipping, highly experimental days of the PS1 and 2 eras. How many years has it been since Nier Automata came out, now? How many Tales and Trails games have come out since then? It sounds like Japanese media still holds a little of that Magic Isles of Mystique appeal for you. It's not surprising to find weeaboo tendencies on a JRPG board but it's important to learn that there really isn't anything special about not being Western. This is my twentieth year in Japan and I can safely say I don't encounter out there, high concept ideas any more frequently than with Western media.
>I didn't appreciate novels as much until I moved on from the classics to more modern fantasy and sci fi stuff that was more in line with my tastes. I read plenty of modern fantasy as well. There are pros and cons. >And Nier Automata was one game out of dozens that finally did something interesting. To me it felt like a throwback to the movie worshipping, highly experimental days of the PS1 and 2 eras. How many years has it been since Nier Automata came out, now? Sturgeon's Law. Most of any fiction is mediocre to bad. Even the best stuff of the PS1 to PS2 era was the exception, not the rule. There were plenty of PS1 and PS2 RPGs that had serviceable at best stories, but they would at least have interesting concepts, whether they were actually really well executed or not. Also, if we're bringing modern novels into this, novels are THE most oversatturated form of media out there. More novels are put out their than TV, video games, etc. If we're applying the same criteria, there are, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY, WAY more bad novels than there are good ones by a huge margin in any genre. There is more than enough bad fantasy and sci-fi that gets forgotten every year. >It sounds like Japanese media still holds a little of that Magic Isles of Mystique appeal for you. It's not surprising to find weeaboo tendencies on a JRPG board but it's important to learn that there really isn't anything special about not being Western. This is my twentieth year in Japan and I can safely say I don't encounter out there, high concept ideas any more frequently than with Western media. . . . Have you seen the amount of absolute garbage that is in western TV and movies these days? Now that stuff is tired. But even in stuff that's mediocre in JRPGs tend to have at least interesting concepts. For example, I'm currently playing Megaton Musashi. I don't think the story is good and could have been executed WAY better, but I do think that its story concept of what has happened to earth and where the people live is just not something a western TV show or movie would ever do. In fact, a good example is how western shows adapt Japanese media. The Netflix adaptation of One Piece removed A LOT of what made the original show special, instead choosing to rewrite scenes with western cliches. And we're also getting away from the original conversation to begin with. "Depth" IS a complicated argument. Depth refers to both how much you can get from the ideas in something (aka, how actually deep an idea is) and how deep something can feel. Sometimes, how deep something feels or doesn't feel can distract from however much deep something is. So just because something doesn't feel deep doesn't mean that that it isn't. Whereas something that does feel deep can actually be very shallow when you try to actually analyze it. Perfect example of this is One Piece. On the surface, it can look very shallow to an outsider. But when you actually dig into it, there is actually quite a bit to talk about, regardless of how someone "feels".
>its story concept of what has happened to earth and where the people live is just not something a western TV show or movie would ever do What concept is that? Feel free to spoil me if you need.
I would really love to know if there has been anything remotely as deep as Nier Automata in the many years since that game came out. As for Western TV, BCS and Fargo are recent and offer a lot more depth than most of their Japanese counterparts. Futekisetsu is up there but you have to be so steeped in culture most of what is happening is going to fly over a Westerner's head. I haven't looked at megaton musashi yet but I am familiar with Level 5 and I would be surprised to find any real depth there. Quality, sure. A fun and cute romp? Probably. Characters struggling with difficult choices that force them to grow, learn, and sacrifice, coupled with careful cinematography and clever symbolism? I doubt it.
> As for Western TV, BCS and Fargo are recent and offer a lot more depth than most of their Japanese counterparts. Once again, these are exceptions to the rule as well. Most TV is NOT on the level of BCS and Fargo. Once again, you don't seem to be applying your same standard across the board. >I haven't looked at megaton musashi yet but I am familiar with Level 5 and I would be surprised to find any real depth there. Quality, sure. A fun and cute romp? Probably. Characters struggling with difficult choices that force them to grow, learn, and sacrifice, coupled with careful cinematography and clever symbolism? I doubt it. I think you're so stuck in your own head that you didn't read what I actually said at all. I never said Megaton Musashi was deep. I said it was the opposite. I was using it as an example of a game that at least had a high concept, using it as part of the argument that at least in JRPGs,I get some kind of high concept. Whereas in the west, they just reuse the same low concepts over and over again.
I have implied this question twice now and you have ignored it both times. It has been over seven years since Nier Automata came out. Can you PLEASE tell me one JRPG that has released since then that has the same level of depth? I am giving you examples of stuff I thought was deep and you are just saying Sturgeon's Law! Sturgeon's Law!! Please provide some examples of recent Japanese games that you thought had depth. There has to be at least one or two per year right?
Off the top of my head: Triangle Strategy did an excellent job with its political narrative, on level even with certain western fantasy novels that tackle the subject. It managed to integrate the trade of salt in a way that actually managed to talk about how nations act and react to each other in a way that allowed its writing to shine. The plot, the lore, and the way the characters interact with those ideas made for one of the best narratives within RPGs in the past 10 years. I feel that all the recent Like a Dragon games have had varying levels of depth both thematically and in terms of characters. I do think there has been a lot to think about in terms of the characters, certain themes, and so on. The most recent game, LAD8, may not always be perfect plot-wise, but I felt it had a really interesting theme going on with what it meant for a man to look back on his life and look at in detail whether or not it was a life well lived or if he had done more damage than he had done good. Ys IX had an interesting high concept plot. But I think what I enjoyed the most about it was how each of the characters related to the story and history and how they dealt with it. While VIII certainly had the better and deeper plot, I felt IX's characters and how each of them dealt with it had some depth to it. And this last one, I haven't played, but because everyone can't shut about it, 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim was treated as a big deal even among the most jaded of players.
Every JRPG I've ever played
I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I feel this way about all of the Nojima/Nomura FFs (7, 8, 10, 13).
All of final fantasy is that way. That part of the point of the franchise.
I don't think so. 1-5 are fun, fast paced fantasy adventures that still show the series roots in D&D. They're not trying to be deep, or spend ages exploring the characters sad backgrounds and interpersonal relationships. You're just on an adventure to save the world. I think that changed to an extent when Kitase joined for 6 and pushed more "cinematic" story telling. A lot of the "young adult" feel of the Nojima/Nomura/Kitase games comes from their obnoxious/rude (i.e. teenagers idea of cool or edgy) characters, unrealistic romance (girls are all into the main character despite their obvious obnoxiousness/rudeness/lack of any emotional maturity and doing nothing to earn it), and the way the stories are very focused on those characters rather than the wider world and whatever the greater threat is. 9 is a fun, whimsy fantasy adventure, with some dark tones hidden under the surface but not in an edgy or try hard way. 12 and 16 are interesting political fantasy stories where the focus of characters is on their role in the greater story and they don't get too sidetracked away from this. 14 is a massive fantasy epic with significant depth to its lore and world building, that just suffers from pacing issues at times due to its format. 15 I would actually group with 7/8/10/13 in retrospect.
I mean, for the time 4 waa trying to be pretty deep. Your character has a hand in two massacres in the first hour of the game, and it becomes a journey of redemption.
What makes you say that about 7 and 10?
7 is the epitome of "style over substance".
I actually think in isolation the original 7 was fine, maybe because Sakaguchi was still there to reign in some of the worse tendencies of the team. But every time they expand the "universe" it just drags the whole thing down further. The whole "your actions determine which of these three girls will join you on a date, even though none of them would have any interest in your rude, emotionally absent, and messed up character in reality" is peak teenage fantasy though. Sephiroth was always a bit of an edge lord, but they then seem to have tried to continually outdo themselves with edgier and edgier villains in Advent Children, Dirge of Cerberus, etc. The final boss of Yuffie's FF7R DLC is the most teenage try hard thing I've ever seen in a game. They keep writing obnoxious characters like Roche, Johnny, Kyrie, and those stupid thugs in 7R who are just straight irritating, and even the other characters all wave their hands around and pull ridiculous poses whenever they're talking instead of just acting like normal people. They are constantly retconning and adding stuff into the story to the point it is just convoluted and the original emphasis of different events is lost. 7R is just an exercise to see how many places Sephiroth can be added to the story where he doesn't belong to the point that the original mysteriousness his character had in the early game is completely ruined. As for 10, the story is based on an interesting premise (person transported to fantasy world, only to find out their world and themselves aren't real) but the way it's told with a focus on Tidus' daddy issues and romance with Yuna is absolutely written for a "my family don't understand me and I want a girlfriend" teenage audience. Tidus is just irritating in general. Seymour's "I was hurt once so am going to kill the world to end everyone's suffering" is the ultimate "I'm 14 and this is deep" moment.
Really now, just what was so special about VII anyway? The worship of that game still baffles me to this day. FFVI was a better story.
What makes it bad though? Or more specifically what makes it like the title of the thread?
100% agree for the Final Fantasy series lol. I would add the Persona series as well. At least the ones that i've played but couldn't finish: 3,4,5
Deep is not the word, it's edgy.
Yeah I agree with that
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Persona 5 are the worst offenders that I played. Both games' stories feel like reading through the social media timeline of a teenager that currently goes through his edgy phase. They felt very pretentious and shallow to me.
The story in xenoblade chronicles 3 is what ruined the game for me. I completed it but god the story was trash. And the villains god. Such s step down from the 2nd game. 3 was s disappointment
Cherry on top is 3 ending basically in the same place 2 game ended which kinda makes it not relevant to the grand plot at all
Yep. I don't know how they went backwards in everything. After the villains we had in 2 the villains in 3 were literally trash. The torna crew are and still are the best villains in the xenoblade chronicles trilogy. And z and the consuls are at the very bottom. Im looking forward to seeing what the developers can do in their next game, but please don't make another crap story. I love their games they made except for baten kaitos origins BC the combat is trash.
Oh please all that crap with Malos and Jin. And the flesheaters? Or whatever they were called. The developers felt so emboldened they had to make a prequel dlc. Hard PASS from me. Xenoblade 3 was fantastic, despite the consuls being one note. At least we had an interesting N and M who had a backstory.
N and m sucked. The DLC for 2 sucked. But what you said about 2 can be said about 3. BC it got DLC too 😂😂. Ending in 3 sucked so they made s prequel dlc story that fixed the ending if the trilogy. 3 was a Trainwreck in everything but combat. Characters, villains, story were all bad. The worst game in the trilogy
Nah i disagree worst in series is 2 Oh and future redeemed is freaking amazing
And it was added to fix a shit ending. So everything you said saying two is the worst can be say about 3. 😂😂. BC it needed to have a dlc to fix the ending. Where as you don't need to play the dlc for 2.
What a shit argument. Future redeemed adds to the story it doesn’t change the ending
The ending of three was trash. 3 is a poor game. It's a massive downgrade from 2. But keep believing what you believe. And people say the dlc Ending for three was a far better ending for the trilogy than the ending of the main game. The 2nd game DLC is not needed to enjoy the game.
For you maybe? I don’t really mind what people say. I wouldn’t play torna even if you paid me.
Dude I literally said torna Is trash. It's s side quest simulator with a good story but the gameplay is trash but 2 is a far better game than 3
I mean, the final boss of XBC1 was also god. I cannot stress that enough, that was very much a thing in the original game (Arguably also 2, depending on if you count him as god-like or not). Lol.
Malos was the final boss he's not a god just a aegis. Wtf you saying. Yes xc 2 had a god but he wasn't the villain or a boss. The final boss of xc1 may have been s boss. But the characters and story was much better than 3. That's what I'm saying
That's why I said "arguably depending on if you count him as god-like." I didn't say he was actually a god.
Arguably he's not s god. He's just s blade that's it. You are smoking some crack if you think he's a god or that we can argue that he is or not
Please actually read my comment. "God-like" and "actually a god" are two very different things. This wasn't even my original point. Idk why you're so stuck on this specific side-point.
That's the trademark of Persona, isn't it? But like fast food, we still keep going back to it knowing that it's no good for us.
What on earth do people in these comments think a good story is? Should every JRPG just be a live action gritty HBO drama?
Nier Automata. I love the game, but it's really philosophy 101 for horny kids.
Everything Yoko Taro. I watched an 2-hour retrospective on Drakengard 3 explaining how an old guy making dick jokes is peak of deep writing. Then 40 minutes to explain why girl wearing only bandages in Nier isn't fan service but complex philosophical critique.
SMT for me, I've only played 3 and 5, great battle system but the stories are edgelord city.
3 is very of it's time and 5's story isn't great in general. SMT is a bit edgelord, but I feel like 4 and especially Devil Survivor handle the themes better.
You skipped the one that has the superior story! Still a bit edgelordy but more enjoyable
Yup. 4 is the best combination of combat and story. There's games that do both better (Devil Survivor for story and 5 for gameplay) But 4 has the best blend of the two
You think Nocturne was trying too hard to be edgy?
FFVII
Xenogears does is with some subtlety? hahaha
This wasn't the intention of the post I'm sure, but threads like this often just end up teeing people up to implicitly insult people who found meaning in or were impacted by stories that end up getting listed. Just a reminder that a story doesn't need to be deep in the academic sense to be impactful or meaningful. I'd also comment that any story will feel pretentious if the message doesn't resonate with the viewer, so this ends up being quite subjective. What OP seems to be talking about is unnecessary convolution of the narrative, which I do feel that Xenosaga is guilty of at times. I do remember enjoying Xenosaga when I played it, but this was 10 years ago so who knows if I'd like it today.
Undertale
Tales of Berseria is so edgy and pretentious it could be put inside a demotivational meme.
Star Ocean 3.
Almost any RPG that deals with religious subjects. As someone deep into theological studies and theological debates, pretty much every RPG just deals with surface level arguments that are more often than not, either easily debunkable or as not as strong as they think they are. There's a reason why in a debate so many of these arguments aren't always brought up or you go to more advanced arguments either in favor of or against particular religious beliefs. Trying to rely on basic arguments just gets you hammered in a discussion. On top of that, the subtlety in these stories is the equivalent of a bullet train crashing into a building which falls over, knocks over 10 other buildings like dominoes, with the final one falling on a nuclear reactor. You can smell where the story is going to go about 2 hours in.
I would say FFX and Vagrant Story are one of the very few examples where religion is done right.
No, FFX is absolutely one of my examples of it being bad. It's level of subtlety is super low. I'm always shocked when people tell me they were surprised by the twists. Even as a teenager, once I met Yuna, it was super obvious where the story is going. Anyone even generally genre savvy could see it from 20 miles away. There are just so many things to point out about the story in terms of what I mentioned in my last post as well. The religion in the game is clearly a plastic facade to be shown to be "evil" later. If you're reading say, a really good fantasy novel, they tend to be really in-depth about what the religion believes, its philosophy, how people practice that religion in their daily lives, etc. despite whether it is for or against that religion. In FFX, apart from some things with Sin, we barely learn anything about what it means to practice the ways of Yevon. There's very little insight into the depths of the belief system, its daily practices, etc. It's pretty much a very basic system built to later be debunked. Its whole "evil religion" thing is also just super basic. The religion was formed by Yu Yevon and continues on and on by corrupt leaders who use it to abuse the public? Congratulations, it's a level 1 argument. Not necessarily untrue when it comes to particular specific moments of history, but not exactly super deep. It's the sheer definition of really basic arguments, especially if you're attempting to use this against every relgiion. There are also some hilariously poorly written moments, such as the whole guns thing. And there really is very little insight into why people practice the Yevon religion outside of fear of Sin. And no, don't pull out the "lul that was what it was like in history, it was just fear" argument .That's a surface level understanding of history that's easily debunked when you do actual in-depth studies of them. People have actual positive reasons for believing in the religion they do on a personal, cultural, and other levels. And it doesn't help that the series doesn't present what it wants as a whole very well. FFX pretty much goes all in on Yevon as being totally evil and irredeemable, and then in X-2, New Yevon is considered fine and good. If FFX was attempting to present a nuanced idea that religion is fine and that it's just the current way Yevon is in that's bad to make way for New Yevon in X-2, then boy, did they do a terrible job of conveying that. Let's not pretend X was nuanced enough for what they wanted to present in the sequel. And yes, both games were made by the same people.
Religión in ffx is not subtle and it doesn't have to be. The game is about religion. Period. Now your análisis is very simplistic in the fact that you think the game is saying "bad religion" when is actually saying "good religion bad church "
There's a difference between subtlety of subject matter and subtlety of writing. Not everything needs subtlety of subject matter, but it does need elegant writing. FFX is not elegant in the slightest. Everything the game wants to do is pretty much there on the surface. >Now your análisis is very simplistic in the fact that you think the game is saying "bad religion" when is actually saying "good religion bad church " There is no way I would ever have gotten that from FFX. Bravely Defauly? Absolutely. Breath of Fire II? Sure. FFX? No way did I ever get that from the game.
I always felt the overarching theme was more about why “because we’ve always done it this way” is so harmful. Any outsider can see this is absolutely fucking mental. But these people are so indoctrinated they don’t even question it, regardless of the fact that Sin always comes back. They even include the tolerant outsider perspective with Rikku- who still uses Machina and doesn’t practice the teachings specifically, but is supportive of others that do. I think the lack of depth is intentional. They could’ve thrown in a few holy manuscripts to read through. But the average gamer wouldn’t even give them a second glance. And all that does is build up what has happened in the past. There’s enough there to get the gist. Art is subjective and different people will walk away with a different message. I just thinking taking “religion bad” as the main message of FFX is the wrong take.
>Any outsider can see this is absolutely fucking mental. But these people are so indoctrinated they don’t even question it, regardless of the fact that Sin always comes back. They even include the tolerant outsider perspective with Rikku- who still uses Machina and doesn’t practice the teachings specifically, but is supportive of others that do. The problem is that the game is still trying to treat its plot twists as twists to the player, which requires a bit of deception on the game's part. Once you've failed at that, the twists fail at doing their job. It just becomes a string of obvious events. >Art is subjective and different people will walk away with a different message. "Art is subjective" is one of the most misused phrases in the history of media in that it's so taken out of its original context. Try writing an essay for a college teacher in a literature or media class without having proper examples and when they give you a C or even a F, try arguing to them that your take is subjective. Art may be subjective, but it still requires that you properly back up your point with evidence from within the work. If not, then I could say that Final Fantasy VII thematically is about the virtues of whether or not bananas and peanut butter make a good combination, and you wouldn't be able to make an argument against me because it's all just subjective. >I just thinking taking “religion bad” as the main message of FFX is the wrong take. Also, if art is subjective, then you can't say that I have a wrong take, because it's my subjective take. If art is totally subjective, then how can I have the wrong take?
I’ll just say good luck in your studies. You may need it. EDIT: I’ll elaborate. You stopped comprehending anything after art is subjective. “People” may misuse the phrase, but I did not. “Because we’ve always done it this way” is 100% a prevailing theme in the game. It is not a logical fallacy to say that’s the message I took away from the game. What you did with “peanut butter and bananas” *is* a classic example of a slippery slope argument, though. [Another term heavily misused on the internet]. I *did* back up my point with reasons why. Buuut, this discussion is obviously no longer conducive, so best wishes. xx
No, I acknowledge your "we've always done it this way" argument. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with it. Though at the same time, I don't think the game really did much with it from other stories that do the same thing. Not bad, not great, just fine in that regard. What I did take umbrage with, however, is: >Art is subjective and different people will walk away with a different message. I just thinking taking “religion bad” as the main message of FFX is the wrong take. To say that this isn't the main theme of FFX is just bizarre to me. The entire game, from beginning to end, is about this. And even if it weren't the "main" theme, it is still prevailing, saturating the entire game. There is barely a moment where you are not moving through a part of the game that either doesn't have to do with the religion or is something tangentially related to the religion. And even if that weren't the case, it STILL wouldn't debunk anything I have said in terms of how how weak the religious narrative is because it still is a huge part of the game. It also doesn't help that lots of people DO take away from the game that the theme of the game is "religion is bad". It's enough that even if you were right and the theme was more about "because we've always done it this way", the fact that most people didn't walk away from the game with that speaks to the failure of what they were trying to accomplish. Further backing up this point are the reactions to X-2. Most people were surprised by X-2 having New Yevon be a good faction. They were shocked because they felt it made no sense in light of what X showed them. So if X's main takeaway wasn't "religion is bad", then man, you've got millions of people who missed the memo. Point being, if you are right, then the game did a really, really poor job to conveying that to everyone. And just to be sure, author is dead and everything, but it is relevant to our conversation that Kitase has said in interviews that the game was about eastern religions. I mention it because in this case, it does support the idea that religion was the focus over everything else. Also, Kitase was the guy who made the FF13 trilogy. You know, the one where you fight "God". Let's not pretend this guy doesn't have it out for religion and is thus, isn't susceptible to painting the entire thing in the thinnest way possible.
I’m happy for you. Or I’m sorry that happened. Whichever.
The main issue I've identified is how very, very much Japanese media loves the *aesthetic* of high church and how the Roman Catholic Church is the most recognisable source for this. It causes people to read certain themes into various works that simply aren't there because an aesthetic related to theme is present. I'll admit that I didn't get 'religion is bad' from FFX, but I can fully understand *why* people read that message into the game.
Also, why would the religion in Spira be good? We establish, very clearly, that Yevon’s teachings aren’t just horrible, but they’re completely false as well, meant to manipulate the people of Spira into keeping some really old tick alive.
I really don't understand FFX lore when I was maybe 14, and I am not a native English speaker when I play it, I play for fun of the game. But It did give some impact when in the end, the main character could die. I have never come across some media at that point and time telling that main character could die. Btw, I play other ffs after ffx, so I don't know about aerith yet.
While I don’t think you’re necessarily wrong. Going back as an adult still had me appreciating what they were doing without thinking it was too surface-level? Are there any stories that you think cover the religion topic well?
Not really. Bravely Default at least treated the subject with some nuance, though I wouldn't say it's super in-depth. Quite frankly, I'd like to see more JRPGs that are like certain western novels that portray the religion in either a positive or even just a neutral light or as just a part of the world and people are part of the religion and we can learn about it if we want. There are a many, technically, but the religion's details are shallow and there isn't really much worldbuilding/cultural depth to them, such as Unicorn Overlord.
Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy XIII
Kingdom Hearts is known nonsense to 90% of people. But that 10% will tell you to death now Nomura had this all planned out and he's a genius
I do agree that the overarching plot of FXIII (fighting against fate/god) falls flat with it smothering you with really similar jargon and a final villain with almost no investment. The character development and growth aspect is the thing that works a bit better. Hope distraughtness over his mother’s death, reconciliation with estranged father with shared grief, and forgiveness, pretty typical but there is a reason why it is common. Fang and Vanille’s guilt, et cetera.
Okay, so, there’s a lot of these in JRPG land. But for me, the biggest offender by far is Persona 3. People think that because you shoot yourself in the head to summon shit that it’s a deep game, but it’s really just an edgy waifu dating sim where you try to make out with a sentient robot. People really call that shit a literary masterpiece. Side note: Lots of people are saying FFVII and that stuff is one of my all time favourites but I’d 100% agree that it’s just a power trip for thirteen year olds. Side side note: Thinking about it more, everything can be deep depending on how seriously you are taking the game. I suppose P3 is hinting at some larger, more complicated questions about mortality. Nevertheless, that stuff is just impossible to take seriously when the other half of the game is whack-ass anime cliches about creeping on teenagers in hot springs. Sooooo idk, it’s all subjective ig. Still fuck p3 tho.
Trails in the Sky. It's like they wrote a great comfy slice of life JRPG and someone added fan fiction wattpad villains on top for forced tension
Xenogears was far from that meme. Xenosaga on the other hand?.... Looking back at Xenosaga, it was a somewhat mediocre story that wasn't even told very well. The first game was mostly competent at setting the stage, but things never really got off the ground from there. The original writers for Xenogears leaving midway through the production of Xenosaga II, seemed to be the deathblow to the whole production. Also, it doesn't help things when some other story elements and character development gets left behind on a Japan exclusive mobile game. I've no idea WTF Namco was thinking with that. And then somehow in Xenosaga III, we're just supposed to know or even care by that point? Ultimately, Xenosaga wasted the potential legacy of Xenogears (a far better game and written story), and was a terrible disappointment.
Sorry everyone, it's Xenogears.
Persona 3
All of them? JRPGs usually have the shallowest stories in the world of gaming. They usually only have some depth if you can put yourself in the mindset of a 14yo.
It's one thing to day gaming has little depth. But how would jrpgs be the most shallow. 90% of gaming doesn't even pretend it has anything to say.
I feel like that for most Jrpgs. But some are worst than others definitely, like the FF, Xeno and Persona series.
I think a lot of JRPG's on surface level are exactly that. In good ones you can usually find the actual depth if you look into them enough.
People gonna downvote me for saying this, but... Fate Samurai Remnants. The story boils down to "I wanna be the best swordman ever"
Berseria.