 |
| I think I'm just a sucker for the whole "Japanese High School" thing... |
JRPGs offer a distinct gaming experience that can't easily be replicated. As a fan of such games, I've become very familiar with the tropes of the genre. Unfortunately, that also means that I'm painfully aware of some of the problems that always seem to be cropping up in the games. The following are some of the more persistent issues that should be fixed. With a few small tweaks, the JRPG genre can grow into something even more impressive.
5. Localize Wisely
This one's mostly for audiences outside of Japan. I'm always hearing stories about certain games not getting released to Europe and the US because it would cost too much money to localize the game. English voice acting is an expensive, time consuming process. Some Japanese environments, customs, or jokes might be lost on an English-speaking culture. These kinds of problems need to be fixed, right? Well, not really...
The Japanese voice acting? The quirky, foreign-feeling customs? I think I can speak for a vast majority of anime fans when I say that people like us eat that stuff up. Heck, even when watching anime online, most people prefer to watch the original Japanese version that has been subtitled in English. That way, the viewer gets a more authentic experience.
When Japanese media is dubbed in English (or any other language, for that matter), the voice actors are restricted to saying their lines in the same amount of time as the original Japanese sound clip. This results in long pauses between sentences, or quick, almost incomprehensible delivery of lines as the voice actor tries not only to match the emotion of the character at the time, but also to fit all of it within the amount of time it took a Japanese person to say it. Any anime fan will tell you that this almost never works out. English dubs sound forced, insincere, or just plain...bad...
When I heard this, I cringed. It's not the fact that the idea of casually talking about chopsticks is so foreign that it makes me uncomfortable. It was hearing it delivered in an English voice that really threw me for a loop, mostly because no one who lives in an English-speaking country would ever say something like that.
If the voice acting had been in Japanese, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at this line, because it would have seemed totally normal and understandable within the context of the game. However, hearing it delivered straight-faced in English for some reason made me stumble.
The game continued to make me cringe when I began to hear the characters refer to each other as "Chie-chan" and "Yosuke-kun." Again, I'm totally aware that this kind of way of addressing people is common in Japan, and I have no problem with that. However, no one outside of the country talks like this, so when I hear it in English, I find myself groaning. It's this kind of feeling that the forced tone of English voice acting seems to instill in people like me.
I suppose the one exception to this rule would be for games that are set in a fantasy world, which is vastly separated from both eastern and western customs. In those cases, go ahead and dub whatever you want. As long as nothing sounds incinsere or forced, I'm all for voice acting in JRPGs like that.
 |
| Voice acting in this game? A-Okay, with me! |
However, the extreme efforts that are taken to localize JRPGs confuse me. People who are fans of the genre are usually fans of other Japanese media as well, such as manga and anime. As such, they don't like it when the original work has been tampered with in order to make it more "accessible" to English-speaking audiences. It would be much more efficient, and less expensive, to simply leave any voice work as it is, and display English subtitles at the bottom of the screen. This way, fans get exactly what they want, and publishers don't have to shell out too much cash to bring the title out of the country.
4. Scale the Bosses Better
I don't know what it is about JRPGs, but they always seem to have the toughest, most frustrating bosses in all of gaming. Everything could be fine and dandy for a few hours in a dungeon, but once the player reaches the boss at the end, he or she is almost immediately confronted by an immovable wall that obliterates the entire party within seconds. Needless to say, I've grown tired of this pattern.
Bosses have the right to be difficult, of course. They're the "head honchos" of a dungeon, the leader of all of the minions in a certain area. I can understand the fact that they'd be tougher than their foot soldiers. However, I can't help but feel discouraged when I'm completely obliterated in one fell swoop, especially when I've had almost no problems with enemies throughout the rest of the dungeon.
 |
| Everything was totally fine until this dude came along... |
It's moments like these when I'm really turned off by JRPGs. More often than not, when a boss crushes my entire party using nothing but his pinky toe, it usually means that I'm under-leveled, and I need to do some grinding to catch up. This makes every boss in the game seem like a benchmark that needs to be met before any progress can be made, like a sign that says "You must be at least 'this' level before you can see the rest of the game." It's irritating.
Not to mention, grinding is a boring chore. It's literally a time-wasting mechanic that was designed to make the game seem like it's lasting longer than it actually is. There's nothing fun about killing the same baddies over and over in order to gain a few levels. This sort of meaningless drudgery breaks the flow of a game, which is a big problem for a genre that places heavy emphasis on storyline and narrative like the JRPG.
If bosses were scaled down so that players could take them out without needing to grind, the genre would be much better off. I'm not saying the bosses should be able to be slain on the player's first try every time, though. I'm just suggesting that maybe the player should feel like he or she at least stands some semblance of a chance against a boss, instead of being annihilated the moment the battle starts.
3. Get Rid of Random Encounters
I'm glad to see that a lot of JRPGs nowadays seem to be adopting this notion. However, it still saddens me that I see it crop up in certain games every now and then. Pokemon, as much as I love you, your random encounters are tedious, artificial, and just plain annoying.
With random encounters, a dungeon that would normally take 5 minutes to walk though suddenly becomes a 30 minute long journey. It's agonizing to have to walk only a few steps before suddenly being thrust into another battle. In the player's mind, they always seem to come at the worst possible times. Just about to reach the exit? Random encounter. Party's low on health and stamina? Random encounter. Just got away from a random encounter? Random encounter.
 |
| When I'm out of repels, seeing something like this just makes my heart sink. |
Some convenient fixes for this problem can be seen in a few JRPGs to date. For instance, The World Ends with You features a "scanning" mode that lets you see all of the baddies in the area. You could be walking around the city of Shibuya for as long as you want, and when you feel like battling, simply go in the scan mode and click on an enemy icon. From there you're taken into battle mode, and you fight. Nice, simple, and convenient. Train and battle when you want to train and battle. How about that?
 |
| You mean to tell me that I don't have to bother with any of this if I don't feel like it? Surely you jest! |
Another nice example is Persona 4. As the player runs around in a dungeon, there's no need to worry about randomly encountering an enemy, because the enemy can be seen before it's actually engaged. A shadow could be floating around in a hallway, and if you didn't want to fight it, you could attempt to bypass it and avoid a battle all together. Or, if you felt like fighting, you could run up and attack it, which sends you into a battle menu. Once again, this option is much more efficient and much less tedious than random encounters.
In truth, random encounters just seem like the easy way out for developers. Making it so that battles come up at any time is simple, and it ensures that the player is exposed to as many opportunities as possible to level up. However, taking the time to coordinate when battles can and can't happen is much more satisfying and enjoyable for the player, even if it requires more effort from the programmers.
2. Let the Players Manage the Cutscenes
This problem has become increasingly difficult to ignore in JRPGs. In a genre that focuses on narrative, character development, and plot twists, there is an almost astonishing abundance of lengthy cutscenes and dialogue conversations in these games. And that's fine. Stuff like that is part of what defines a JRPG. But, when a cutscene takes away absolutely all of the control from the player, things start to get messy.
I'm sure every gamer out there has some kind of horror story about having to watch the same cutscene innumerable times. Stuff like that happens when a particularly difficult section of the game is reached. The player reaches a point, sees a cutscene, gets killed by a difficult enemy, reloads the last save, then has to watch the same cutscene again. Repeat this 3 or 4 times, and you've got a recipe for insanity.
 |
| So many hours of childhood, wasted... |
I understand the fact that the animators put a lot of time and effort into their cutscenes. I know how it feels when a project is finished, and you think it's the greatest thing in the world. I can sympathize with the notion that everyone should see what you've done as many times as possible. However, if a cutscene is made unskippable for the mere sake of stroking the pride of an animator, then those people are shooting themselves in the foot.
You see, when gamers have to view a cutscene for the 17th time in a row, they grow to despise it. They hate the fact that that they know every single word and every single audio cue in the entire scene. They silently curse the person who wrote the conversations, and made them last for 5 minutes straight. The cutscene could be about happy little bunny children getting reunited with a long lost father, and the player would still seethe after being forced to watch it again and again.
Unskippable cutscenes discourage the player from attempting to retry a difficult section. It makes every attempt seem all the more time consuming, as if there was a 3-7 minute delay for each subsequent do-over. And let me tell you, those same 3-7 minutes are some of the most aggravating moments in the entire game.
Heck, I remember playing Final Fantasy X a few years back, and getting stuck on the battle with Jecht for the longest time. And each and every time I wanted to try again, I had to watch as Tidus argued with his daddy, and told him how much he hated him. Sure, the moment was touching and impactful when I first saw it, but after 2 or 3 retries, I began to lose my patience.
After timing it, I came to discover that every time I wanted to have another go at the boss, I had to wait 6 minutes before the battle even started (which may not seem like a lot, but bear in mind that I watched the same 6 minutes at least 15-20 times). I remember getting to the cutscene, leaving the room, making a sandwich, watching some TV, and taking a piss before coming back, and the cutscene was just wrapping up. When the player needs to find some excuse to get away from the TV when he or she is playing a game, you know something's wrong.
Here's the scene, for context. Watch it once, then do something else for 20 minutes, and watch it again. Repeat this until you go insane. It should only take about 3 cycles.
And another thing: If the cutscene is pushing 5+ minutes, please, for the love of God, let the player pause it. I know for a fact that a lot of gamers have busy lives. The opportunity to play a game is not one that comes up often, and players usually scrounge up whatever they can get. But, if by some inconvenience, reality decides to knock on our door and take us away from games for a bit, we should be able to pause it no matter what we're doing, and that includes watching a cutscene.
Cutscenes are often the moments where really important stuff happens in the game. So understandably the player never usually wants to miss them. But! What if nature calls, and the player is struck with a case of terrible indigestion? Or perhaps someone is calling on the phone, and you need to go have an impromptu conversation. If that cutscene can't be paused, the player's enjoyable experience suddenly becomes a pressing decision of Fate. Is missing important plot development worth the momentary leave of absence? You have exactly 5 seconds to decide.
Other forms of media don't have this kind of problem. Reading a book or watching a movie can easily be put on hold if the viewer suddenly needs to do something else. What the hell makes video games (especially JRPGs) so entitled to force us to stay on the couch and watch their cutscenes? Nothing.
This problem needs to be fixed.
1. Let the Player Save Anywhere
This is the annoying growth of all JRPGs that never ceases to drive me insane. For whatever reason, the genre seems to be especially stingy with when the player is allowed to save. Usually, the game limits the player to saving in a certain "hub world", or open map. This means that villages, dungeons, and caves are, for no discernible reason, declared "no save" zones. As such, they must be completed in one go, regardless of whether or not you have other things to attend to.
In the worst of cases, the game employs a "save point" system, where the players are only allowed to save when they find a certain magical object in the sprawling world. What that implies is that the player has absolutely no idea when he or she will be able to save again. It could be in 5 minutes, or 45 minutes. Either way, that game can't be turned off until the progress has been recorded.
What I can't seem to comprehend is the fact that JRPGs seem to abuse the hell out of bad saving mechanics. They always seem to employ the most inconvenient system, and an entire game can suffer for it.
The first problem of not being able to save anywhere at any time is obvious. If I'm not allowed to save at all while I'm in a dungeon, what if I don't have the 45-90 minutes to spare going through all of the floors and battling with all of the enemies? The player shouldn't have to budget his or her time in order to accommodate with the game's restrictions. It limits how much the he or she is able to enjoy the game significantly.
 |
| The final stretch of this dungeon takes about 2 hours to complete. But for what reason would you possibly want to save in the middle? |
The second problem with poor save systems is much more diabolical. If I can only save at the entrance of a dungeon, or at designated save points, what if I die in the dungeon? Every JRPG gamer knows this fear. Spending over an hour battling enemies, finding rare loot, and gaining levels, only to have all of the effort taken away by a boss or a particularly powerful enemy. Everything you had accomplished up to that point, and all of the things you had acquired are suddenly made meaningless as the player is forced to reload the game's most recent save. It's a diabolical, heartless system. And I don't understand why it still exists.
Hell, even a game like Pokemon got saving right way back in 90's. Whether you were talking to folks in a town, trekking through a route to get to the next gym, exploring a cave, or surfing across the ocean, you were able to save, turn the game off, and come back to it later. Worst case scenario, the player gets into a battle, and has to be deprived of the luxury of saving for, at most, 20 minutes. Even today, that system is damn convenient for a gamer on the go.
 |
| Words cannot express how beautiful this is... |
No comments:
Post a Comment
You. Yes you, with the keyboard and the dead-eyed stare. Did you like the article? Despise it? Let me know in the comments. Be it good or bad, feedback will eventually inspire me to suck less.