[smaili]

> Suffice to say, the average PS1 JRPG contains a very archetypal story.

I'm not sure how others feel but to me I've definitely noticed a much stronger emphasis on wowing visual effects in today's RPG's and a much weaker focus on the story and plot lines as was the case in past games.

[phowon]

>I've definitely noticed a much stronger emphasis on wowing visual effects in today's RPG's and a much weaker focus on the story and plot lines as was the case in past games.

This basically started in the PS3 era, where it appeared that the casual consumer's bar of visual graphics were raised high enough that pushed up development costs, to the point where developer couldn't cheaply churn out interesting, experimental titles.

Many people will cite the SNES and PS1 era as the golden age of JRPGs, but I think the PS2 era is under-appreciated. The SNES/PS1 era had a lot of classics, but the PS2 era was absolutely flooded with great, 8/10 JRPGs across all manner of series, benefiting from the gameplay/UI/UX refinements learned from the SNES/PS1 era and the improved hardware capabilities of the PS2. You had participation across all manner of series: from your popular Final Fantasies and Dragon Quests, to Tales, Persona, Star Ocean, Suikoden, Wild Arms, Breath of Fire, Arc the Lad and so on. You had a whole generation of new entrants like Radiata Stories, Shadow Hearts, Atelier, Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy, Xenosaga, .Hack, and many others. Not all of these were amazing, but most of these were at least very good, and in particular they were diverse while also being streamlined as some of the visual/gameplay "language" JRPGs become more firmly established. To me, this was the last great age of JRPGs.

[hyperindexed]

Certainly agree, regarding the PS2 era! Having the chance to play a remastered version of Persona 4 on the Vita, for me, was justification enough for buying the handheld.

[cnasc]

P4G is great. In terms of money per hour of entertainment I definitely got huge value. I never finished the game (really, I just can't dump 80ish hours into a game anymore), but I really enjoyed what I did play.

[smaili]

Very well said and 100% agree.

[izacus]

That seems just nostalgia / survival bias. There was plenty of garbage licensed trash through the history and you only remember the good ones.

Same now - we live in the era where games like Witcher 3, Firewatch, Pillars of Eternity, Sunless Sea, Banner Saga, Horizon: ZD, Alien: Isolation, Wolfenstein, Yakuza and many many more exist. Of course you need to actually look beyond the most advertised ones... but then again, you do go looking for the best thought provoking movies in summer blockbuster lists do you?

[haolez]

I strongly agree with you. We had a lot of crap in the past, but there were some gems like Chrono Trigger.

However, I seem to be the only Baldur’s Gate fan that didn’t like Pillars :)

[adwf]

Yeah I couldn't quite get into Pillars in the same way as BG or the other old infinity engine games.

I feel like the writing, quests and general world building was really quite good - but the overall gameplay was a bit of a let down.

They abandoned the traditional d20 system in favour of a custom model which really didn't feel right. For instance, barbarians needing high intelligence because that was the stat that extended area attacks. Or mages being fine with heavy armour and high strength, whilst your fighters were seriously hindered by armour...

Just felt like a really weird system that they never quite worked out. They were trying to be different just for the sake of it IMO.

[yaseer]

In the case of the Final Fantasy games, I agree.

The latest one is just garbage, story-wise despite being absolutely beautiful.

[Shish2k]

AFAIK FFXV had a much better story planned out; but they were pushed to release it half-baked, so they cut out a bunch of content to make it smaller-but-semi-coherent, planning to add all the extra context back in the form of DLC. But then the first DLC didn't sell amazingly well, and the rest just got cancelled :(

(Pretty much the same thing that happened to Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, also by Square Enix...)

[soylentcola]

I only just played this game last summer/fall (I guess once it showed up for PC). While there were definitely enjoyable aspects and I played through the whole thing, it really did feel like half a game.

I'd played most of the NES/SNES/PS1 entries (some all the way through, some partially before getting sidetracked) and while the stories were often convoluted or just poorly localized, they were lengthy and had a lot to do.

The latest FF game looked great and I could deal with the sketchy plot logic but right around when the pacing suggested that I was getting to the "meat" of the game, it went on rails (in some aspects, literally). I was used to the idea of a long setup with a false sense of conclusion, right before it "hits the fan" and the big bad shows up/you end up in the world of ruin/whatever.

When this game went from the peaceful storyline and fun time world exploration with your buddies to "oh crap wtf shit is going down!" it was followed by a series of simpler missions in a few locations, then the end.

I don't even care that the ending itself made little sense unless you had watched some movie or whatever. I was mostly just bummed that the exploration, discovery, dialogue, etc. ended so abruptly so you could fast track to the inevitable showdown with the big bad (who was disappointingly the guy you were led to expect, not the usual fake-out where he was just a pawn of the real ultimate baddie).

Later I read the same thing about how the game was cut short (which also explained all of the locations marked on the map that you couldn't actually visit). Made total sense.

It's a shame they put it out like this. As I said, I only played the PC version which came out two years after the initial release but I would've loved it if they just waited until 2018 and put out the full product. I hadn't played one of these since maybe FFX in 2002 so it was kind of a bummer.

[yaseer]

FFX was the last one I really loved.

I've played a few since, but none quite sucked me in so much as VII and X.