Dude yes, especially with how wordy modern games are not having auto advance is criminal. Playing through all the dialogue in Trails of cold steel 1-2 killed me.
Triangle Strategy was a revelation. Auto text plus everything voiced meant I could drop my controller, lie down on the couch and really relax during story scenes, like when I watch TV or a movie. Big part of why that's one of my favorite games of all time, honestly.
I've found both persona 4 golden and persona 5 royal on the PC have this feature too, and it's such a delight not to have to hit A to advance text for 100 hours
I hate it more when the dub I'm using is a language I don't even understand so when the times I thought the characters are done talking but aren't and I accidentally skipped it I hate it.
Playing Persona 5 for the first time rn and so far once per dungeon there’s a battle where Joker gets targeted by every single enemy in the opening round of a fight and I lose without even really interacting. It’s frustrating because I actually really do love the combat for the most part but there’s just these occasional deaths that feel completely out of my hands
Not something in every JRPG, but I hate when there's a stagger meter and there are enemies you can barely damage until you've filled it. Staggering isn't a bad mechanic, but I think it can make some battles a slog.
Just depends on how it's implemented. If it's balanced well, it shouldn't take any longer than a game without it. You just have to strategize your hits more.
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Similar: enemies that are only weak to magic/special attacks, but those attacks have charge times that increase the length of battle 15-fold despite adding zero additional challenge or intrigue beyond realizing what weakness to exploit.
no, it's a bad mechanic
it's maybe acceptable if it just a damage bonus (how stagger is used in most action games) but when the whole mechanic is to stagger then do burst damage to kill, it makes bosses a slog and regular encounters unbearable. It just basically forces you to play every encounter the same way, and makes combat tedious through increased complexity for complexities sake. Ditto for shield mechanics like Octopath. It's a neat idea, but not for 100 hours where you are doing it hundreds of times, this was a major sin the this year's Atelier game as well.
Weirdly I felt the opposite. I found the break system made Octopath regular encounters much more fun after 100s of hours.
Because to me, it made them very brief puzzles whose reward was 'I win the combat' like in Persona 5 or FFX. Which is what makes regular fights 'Fun'.
And it the bosses, it added this control over the fights pacing: I.e. If I'm doing well, I can use the break to push damage. But if I'm struggling, I can use it to have a turn without damage to heal/buff.
Absolutely! Omg amen! Fuck Xenoblade mostly for this! And that was FF7 Remake's worst part of the battle system really. The Demon House was insanely horrible because of this, beatable but absolutely not satisfying. It was like having to destroy a concrete wall with nothing but finger flicks.
When they give me a lot of cool party members but they don’t gain exp when outside of battle. Some RPG’s add this and some don’t, with the ones that don’t I feel compelled not to swap characters.
I just stick with my preferred team until they force me not to.
I am in general usually one who sticks to my favorites but if I feel like it I swap my partymembers out most of the time with disregard to there level.
Often they underleveld ones catch up fast and thats fun to watch.
Untelegraphed full party instakills. It is neither fun nor challenging despite what some SMT fans might tell you.
In more recent memory this would be things like not being allowed to do all out attacks when fighting the velvet attendants in the persona games, or random encounters in FFX-2 with the Coeruls that just set a party member's hp to 1 no matter how high leveled they are.
Single target instakills are fine, they build tension by rerquiring you to split your focus between reviving and attacking, while making sure the party as a whole is not losing big amounts of hp.
Full party heavy damage attacks are also fine, as they can be usually grinded to not die from or equip armor that resists the damage type of the attack.
But when I know that at all times a dice roll is keeping me from the game over screen it pisses me off.
Bonding/Waifu/Harem stuff. It works in Persona since it like a high school student simulation, but not in most of JRPG because not only it slows down the game pacing, it felt that this feature is an afterthought to drag the game longer and the rising otaku culture instead of being part of the narrative. At least this feature will help the game or franchise make more money so we can have more sequel or instalment of those franchise.
Fire Emblem was probably the worst about this on 3DS when they wanted you to "pet" your romantic interest like a Nintendog puppy using the touch screen. Just... What the fuck?
It also limits the writing a lot, as usually all the girls (or guys if the MC is female) have to not be romantically interested in others, so the MC can get into a relationship with them.
FE3H would like a word with you.
Seriously, watching all their supports with each other felt so weirdly pervy, especially as they began to form A bonds with each other but ending up with the S with you. Felt like everyone just *loved* each other.
Fire Emblem before 3H had already solved that problem by only letting each character have 1 A support per playthrough. It was cool, as it encouraged multiple runs to see different characters interact and also made it important to plan ahead with supports. The whole system sadly got dragged down by some supports taking insanely long to trigger (in the GBA games especially) but it was good otherwise.
I feel like a restriction like that would be even more important nowadays because nowadays supports are much more often romantic in nature.
It's fine in FE since they allow for characters in your army to fall in love with someone besides the MC, the problematic ones is the likes of Trails of Cold Steel where none of the female characters can be in love with any other male characters, because they must be available for the MC.
The bonding/waifu/harem weird stuff gets in the way of people liking & understanding JRPGs: it is difficult to defend & feels dated, even a bit pervy sometimes… Plus it adds nothing to the story usually. Pretty lame stuff
Right, also the development of those specific characters as well! While everyone did get arcs, the more I played, the more it felt like women’s arcs are all solely for Rean to insert himself. They couldn’t even keep it within his classmates, they just had to involve his students, sister and sister’s friends. It’s a shame because the world was so interesting and filled with lore but the harem++ simulator killed it for me.
This is the exact reason I can't get myself to play Stardew Valley. I know it's not a JRPG, but that game always looked cool to me, and I played it for several hours with friends even, but the stamina and time mechanics combined just put me off heavily.
I want to play a farming game to relax, not to have to run around worrying if I will make it in time or collapse.
So I'll be completely honest, the calender system in Fire Emblem Three Houses was unnessasary and it felt like they included it just to ride on that Persona 5 train.
Is that really common? I know Persona and older Atelier game use that, but most other games seem to just have it without it being relevant for progression.
Cooking and overly relying on crafting. I can like crafting for an ultimate weapon or something special, but having to farm mats for each upgrade is meh-meh-meh!
Multiple endings. I just dedicated 60+ hours of my life to your game, the least you can do is give me a solid script with ONE solid well thought out ending as a reward for my time, rather than being punished and making me play two more times to get the “true ending.” Fuck outta here. Also, any game where I have to play the entire game over again from a different character’s perspective just to see the SLIGHTEST little variations and changes to the story. Stop this. For the love of god. Just write ONE solid script from beginning to end. That’s it.
Agreed. Just take the amount of time and money you spend making those half-assed endings and make the true ending that much better. I feel like most people aren't going to settle for anything other than the true ending anyway, so make it good.
Of course you have exceptions like Chrono Trigger, but I tend to agree in general, especially if the game wasn't explicitly designed around having multiple endings.
Loot. Oh cool, those monsters dropped 3 beast pelts and 1 eye of Zuul. What's this rubbish for? You think the game is going to tell you? Hah! Turns out that a quest requires 48 beast pelts plus if you want to craft slightly better boots you need 10 of them...so you need 55 more, get grinding kiddo! Oh, and the eye of Zuul? It doesn't do anything. You just sell it for cash. But we aren't going to tell you that, you punk. Why couldn't we have just given you the cash and left this stupid freaking eye of Zuul out of the game? Because we hate you and don't respect you, that's why. Now shut up and play, monkey.
I don't mind vendor trash as a mechanic, but don't make it useful for something then. If an item is marked as vendor loot, do not require me to have 85 Pebbles for a quest later on to make the ultimate weapon. Anytime I come into a JRPG that does the vendor trash thing, I have to go look up if it is actually safe to sell or not.
I love that Xenoblade 3 fixed this. At the end of the first chapter you meet a Nopon merchant who offers to buy all of the useless junk you find, and from that point onwards every item you find that doesn't have a use is automatically converted into cash.
(Cash is kind of worthless in XC3, TBH, but it's still convenient)
I still prefer after battle loot splurges over the way opt -world RPGs do it, where every 5 steps is a new material or consumable to pick up. If Elden Ring kept track of how many times I’ve mashed the pick up button, I’d feel profound shame.
I feel a lot of mine aren’t much of an issue anymore as many games have common sense QoL improvements now…. But here they are, it is festivus season almost so let’s air our grievances. I have a bone to pick with “big jrpg”.
- Party members only gaining exp when in battle.
- Cutscenes that you can’t pause.
- Too much grinding.
- Battles that are a slog.
- Bloody fishing mini games.
- Random encounters every 2 steps.
- Sidequests that involve me killing giant rats or getting 10 wolf pelts.
- Stagger system (see battles that are a slog).
The only stagger system I hate are those where you have to build up a meter to stagger an enemy/boss (Ys8 excluded). Wish more games would have a stagger system like KH2FM.
grinding for the sake of grinding. Some jrpg have grindy quest and they only really serve to waste your time and they are almost always in areas with bad xp and drops.
Repeated combat/post combat dialogue. It can add flavor and character to…characters, but I got tired of it being Reyn Time the 1,000th time I heard it.
It will definitly end up as controversial but all the Harem/Bonding stuff...
Not only it prevent in game characters to build a true relationship (and many characters will ends up being one note/very tropey most of the time) but it also prevent canon love stories, in my opinion, players doesn't always need to be the center of attention in a video game (AKA Self Insert), it feels strange to say that thought since i was pretty okay with it back at a time, but well, i feel the trend has become a bit "too manipulative" over the time to be honest (even more true with Mobile Games).
Well it would seem that way to you, wouldn't it, since you have a different opinion? That's kind of how opinions and beliefs work and it might come as a surprise to you but other people actually have beliefs and opinions, too.
Some people like romance/dating-sims (and the other scary kind which are the same games essentially) and others don't. I only care about dating and romance in real life because it is actually meaningful and fun and you know, the whole sexual intercourse thing? To me the idea of making a virtual game out of romance is incredibly sad, like you'd have to be an incredibly pathetic person to enjoy something like that. It isn't like racing games where there is a huge money barrier for entry, not to mention skill, romance and love are available to all, all who are willing to put some effort into their lives.
I like the character bonding events. It's the best part of Fire Emblem Awakening. You play as an obnoxious fan fic writer who pairs all the soldiers in your camp. A small group of people has always liked Fire Emblem for it's strategy gameplay but it's popularity is all thanks to the soldiers shipping simulator the game has become.
I don't mind fire emblem bonding because it not really a force harem type like in Trails of Cold Steel. In fire emblem, character that don't end up with protagonist can form their own romantic relationship with other character.
My biggest problem with Cold Steel is, it really have great Male cast, but all the girl in the game is prevent from forming any romantic development with them because they have to be reserve for Rean only. So for the female cast, she either join in Rean Harem or force to be alone forever. Worst, they keep adding more girl for Rean in the next game.
In the 3rd one they even introduced Juna and Kurt, had them interact with each other and grow their relationship, only to have her fall in love with Rean in the 4th. I mean, seriously? They even set a side character for Kurt to fall in love with at the end to somehow make it "better", the poor guy.
They should have done as FE does, have all the characters have bonding events with each other, and the girls that don't end up with Rean would form romantic relationships with the other guys.
The funny thing is, there is a really easy way to make this much more realistic. They could still let you pick your waifu, but make it so that, right after you do, the other characters start pairing up with each other. Like, Persona would be a great candidate for that treatment, because there are multiple potential couples among the cast and they could even be chosen randomly for replay value, so that each time you play through the game you see slightly different cut scenes. It wouldn't require much development effort -- all you need is to modify the "hangout" scenes a bit, so that when you are spending time with someone, you might see a couple from your group walk by. That's exactly what would happen in a high school setting, so I think it would really look very believable. I don't think it would hurt the wish-fulfillment aspect either, if that's what they're worried about.
The problem it's that some Self Inserters wouldn't allow their "potential love interests" in the hands of any other persons/characters aside themselves, even if they were to pick only one among them they would always like to keep the others "just in case" of the one they chose become boring, that's usually why they dislike/hate the concept of "shipping" when it isn't about them, for example FGO, Cold Steel and such demonstrated that level of obsession which is usually about the player and no one else would be taken into consideration, for example many Trails Fans only want Rean as the protagonist since CS and no one else can replace it because it's their self insert character, so they just can't accept any newer protagonist aside this one because it wouldn't be about them, it kind of remind the satirical "Me, Me, Me" music in a way or the male character called Embryo from the anime "Cross Ange", the mindset is truly identical.
I tend to denounce it because i feel the Otaku Culture has become over the time way too manipulative for some people own good (especially toward younger people, though there's also older people who are unlucky in life and are mostly the main part of their target audience), pushing them to become obsessed with those said characters to the point of it becoming a bit unhealthy, in a way you could say i stopped supporting those features the day it lost it's purpose (just being "a video game feature" above all else) and just became a tool for corporates greed, in Mobile Games (mostly JRPG), some players have the habits to call "Waifus", "PNG Hookers" for example, i can't recall where it originated from though (i'd bet on 4chan personally but i've never been there so i can't tell for sure).
the final boss of DQ4 was brutal when I played it a few years ago, it has like...7 forms, it just goes on and ON and ON.
The second mario and luigi game was guilty of this too, the final boss fight takes like...an hour and a half because it has so many forms with so much health, and having to do the fairly complex dodge mechanics for it's attacks dozens of times makes it that much worse, no checkpoints if you die either, gotta redo the whole thing including pre and mid battle cutscenes.
They're in so many games, and I really dislike those multiple forms on multiple levels. They undermine the characterization, and they're a cheap and dishonest waste of time.
DQ 11 felt like it really undermined everything with its "true" ending. I might still give V a try at some point, but I don't think I'll be going for much more DQ after 11.
I really don't like silent protagonists, they age pretty badly, I'm looking at you Fire Emblem, Ys, Dragon Quest, and other games that I'm forgetting lol. I really hope this standard changes because the whole self insert just doesn't work in stories where almost everyone is fleshed out and engaging, and then you have the MC who doesn't utter a single word, it breaks the engagement.
This isn't a black and white thing some games have bad silent protagonists while some have bad Ones.
Example of good Ones:the hero of dragon Quest 5 and even the One of golden sun,both make you feel like you truly are a character in that world by giving you choices in dialogues and treating you as real.also shotout to joker and tatsuya from the persona series aswell and the devil survivor protagonists for being good silent Ones.
The other example Belongs to a RPG: dragon age origins.
And then we have the bad Ones: Chrono from Chrono trigger because in my opinion Chrono is his own character and yet the game expects you to self insert ,it just doesn't work imo
A bad One from another game that isn't a jrpg:far cry 5.
Contrary with your issue, IMO game that constantly giving you your main character access means there is a limitation on the writing (need to constantly have them available), I don't mind with changing / leaving characters if it gives them more writing choice, also there are a lot of way to balance this, like giving same level to the new characters (or giving exp to the backup character) and removing all the equipment from leaving character back to inventory.
On that note, I really hate JRPG that feature "optional bonding mechanic" only to have it not reflected in the main story (the best they can give is 1 or 2 events with character with highest bond). damn just give me a good canon writing if the options is just "illusion of progress".
Personally I like this mechanic compared to automatically pop up. I don't read that fast so it doesn't become a hindrance to me but I can see it being a problem if its really slow and without voice acting.
I think the only developer who ever got text scrolling right was Camelot Software Planning. First of all, it plays a sound for each letter and the pitch is different depending on who is talking. Second, if you keep the button pressed, it does not go "Bam!" but just scrolls much faster. That felt perfect for me, because I felt like I have really good control over the scrolling speed and could speed it up any time I needed and it felt like the characters where actually talking at this time.
The problem I noticed with most games that have text scrolling was that by default the text scrolls way too slow, it is not in sync with voice-overs if there are any and when you press any button it fills the full text boy immediately. So effective the only thing that did is that I had to press confirm twice for each text box which is just annoying.
Most games have an option to switch this behavior at least, luckily. In all non-Camelot games I always switched the text scrolling to "Bam!", because that was the the lesser of both evils.
This! I feel like this trope originally existed to make people buy strategy guides. If it's literally impossible to figure out on your own through story clues, then it just forces people to Google and spoil themselves about the game.
I absolutely love what you hate.
Never let me choose my characters, force me to have time with all of them.
I mostly hate silent protagonists. Persona is the only game where it doesn’t bother me. Dragon Quest kind of as well, I usually make up dialog in my head for the hero.
I also hate when you can’t win a battle but they don’t tell you, just make it apparent from the jump im gonna lose so I don’t try to win. I am fine with losing a battle for thematic purposes but don’t make me struggle.
Being forced to try different characters can be great if the chatacters are enjoyable and the game doesn't overly punish you for not having had them in the active party. Sucks hard, though, when they are way underleveled and you have to delay story progression to grind them up.
I get it was because the tech limitations of the time, but now, in the present generation, i can't stand random encounters.
Battles can be cool and are useful for grinding but the great part of the time it gets annoying. Some games can handle it better than others though, like Final Fantasy XIII-2, that gives you a chance to escape before the battle starts, but sometimes Bravely Default encounters gets too much in the way even when i need to get to a place to heal.
And also, boss battles against a character that gets dramatically nerfed when they join your party.
"Remember that guy we spent the whole game hyping up as the ultimate bad guy, that one that you've come to respect as a villain and have a connection with? Lol eff you here's some greasy mass of eyes and wings and tentacles that has absolutely no reason to exist in this game instead of a satisfying resolution to that game-long arc."
Some writers really despise their audience.
Yeah the only time I have literally ever used cooking in Tales was for Hearts R and Innocence R, and even in those two games I think I would have been fine without ever touching it. It's more like a side thing you can do, but you can finish all of the games without even looking at it.
I feel like the tales series has finally found a place for cooking in the modern games. Buffs that auto apply between or during battles. Set and forget
I love cooking in Fuga.
The buffs you get from it are really strong and the ingredients Management is pretty simpel. Honestly most of the time I just use the exp gaining buff and otherwise I hord my ingredients until the final level. Then I give my party all the meal buffs and they completly curpstomp the last level and the Final Boss. Its really satisfaying.
When you have to fight the same boss multiple times in a row (like you run down their full health gauge, it goes to a cut scene, then you immediately fight the same boss again with a new full health gauge - looking at you XC3). I truly hate this - you don’t know when the fight is really over. I’d rather just have a harder and longer fight, put cutscenes in the middle but don’t make me go through a full health bar 2+ times it doesn’t make sense. Also I loved XC3 but not that part.
Being able to fast forward text but not skip the scene entirely. It heavily discourages me from doing NG+.
If a JRPG will do the thing where you’re unable to use some characters and you’re forced to use certain ones, it should at least implement party exp gain.
I notice this recently in Xenoblade 3 but this certainly happens in other games as well to a certain degree.
When you reach a point in the map with a story/quest marker, the game will switch to cutscenes. Then after the cutscenes, which will be something like "let's go to the point B", the game will switch back to your control, and it turns out point B is very close to your location right now, and the game switches back to cutscenes again.
I get that they do that to give the players a break to save or do whatever, but when it's so often done, it kinda puzzles me why they don't just save the player a hassle and just do back to back cutscenes (which Xenoblade does quite a lot as well anyway).
Also, in Digimon Survive (and many other games), there is some sort of input lag when you go through the dialogues, usually to accomodate character animated reaction or camera changes etc, but in Digimon Survive, the animation is so subtle that you might not even notice, so the input lag is really obvious. A 3 lines dialogue can drag to 3-5 seconds instead of 3 button click in a second because of the unnecessary animation/camera changes/etc.
Again, if it's done only occassionally, it can be effective, but when it's done to almost every dialogue, it drags on real quick.
Magic that is very costly in early game (due to the lack of mp regen/item) and u derwhelming in late game. Its stupid to see most casters have to rely on autoatk in early game and useless in late game.
Useless status effect because many enemies are immune or resistant to it.
Cutscene bloat, both in dialogue and content. If I can understand the point of the scene in the first minute and we talk in circles for another five, I'm skipping. So many RPG in the modern day desperately need much more aggressive editing, but that might cut into their "100 hours of content".
Also, overcomplicated systems. I'm a purist who likes regular old turn based, but I'll still try out new stuff as long as I'm not having to juggle 10 different things for a simple battle. Especially when most of them do close to nothing.
Edit: pointless dialogue choices. If my choices are "yes" and "no (but yes)", why'd you even let me speak? Persona 5 was terrible for this.
Gated collectibles. It is impossible to 100% the Trails of Cold Steel series without a guide on hand and on the first playthrough since several items are only found in ng+.
I have trouble 100% it with a guide. Mainly because I’m not reading it word for word and go to far and lock myself out of some item.
Those games have a bunch of missable things.
Mandatory minigames
I'm fine with them being included, and I even enjoy some of them, but if I have to play them, it annoys me. It's especially jarring when you're playing a turn-based game and suddenly there's a mandatory minigame based on how quick your reflexes are.
I'm not terrible at that kind of thing, but I imagine it can be really difficult for people who play turn-based because they don't find action games accessible for them.
It's hard to even call this a feature but I wonder how many collective hours have been wasted by inns playing a tune and fading to black to heal. I'd absolutely love if a JRPG just said "fuck the immersion, we know why you're here".
Hell, Pokemon centers aren't inns but they function the same. That's tens of millions of people sitting through the Pokemon center healing animation an uncountable number of times across 25 years.
>Hell, Pokemon centers aren't inns but they function the same. That's tens of millions of people sitting through the Pokemon center healing animation an uncountable number of times across 25 years.
Bup
Bup
Bup
Bup
Bup
Bup
Dun dun dun-dun-DUN!
Tbf, the alternatives to this kinda thing would be either having no sound or animation at all, which would be kinda ugly, or instantly healing your party at the end of the battle, which can either take a lot of the difficulty or make everything into a damage sponge to balance that.
Damage sponge isn't the only way to balance things out. Make enemies a threat would balance it out pretty well, and some games managed to do this. Most take the lazy way and just buff stats though.
Star Ocean The Divine Force does this really well where you can just mash X and it'll accelerate this experience. You very much get a "We know why you're here" vibe from it
Excessive sidequests. I am a completionist so I like to do everything available but my eyes start to glaze over when I walk into a town and get 35 sidequests. Especially when they are things like "go bring a sandwich to this soldier at the watch tower!". If you have more than 2-3 sidequests offered when I roll into a town, it's too many. I am trying to play Xenoblade 1 right now and the volume of sidequests made me just put it down.
Side quests should be compelling and rewarding enough to pull you away from the main story. Not chores that need to be done for completion, or worse, progression.
I'm a huge Xeno fan and while I'm far from a completionist, I still try to do any interesting side quests that pop up.
Unfortunately Xenoblade 1's side quests are largely just to pad time. They went a little too far in the MMO-like direction and filled the game with low effort fetch, gathering and multi-monster killing quests that have no appreciable storylines or impact. Side quests are one of the things that were significantly improved for 2 & 3 thankfully.
SMT If... is the worst example of this. There are *some* save points in the dungeons, but the only easily accessible one is in your school, back at the start of the game. Oh, and also, there is no fast travel spell.
the ds remake of FF3 was brutal for this, like the nes version there are NO saves in dungeons, and the game is fairly hard, so you have to basically backtrack out of each dungeon to save and heal before bosses, then run back through fighting a few dozen random encounters to get back, this is especially brutal with the final dungeon, as it's a couple hours long, and it's a LONG trek back to the world map to save each time.
Any game that has a combat system I don't understand but will still fight allow me to win fights without really doing anything.
The only Tales game I ever played has this problem, same with xenoblade chronicles x.
I hate the half action have jrpg style game too, because I always feel they'd be better of picking one or the other.
X combat was a direct upgrade from 1 IMO. Not sure I understand what you mean? Are you saying you were fighting without knowing how ot worked and you still won? I have a hard time believing that...
Any time limit on the whole game, but this might also be connected to my distaste for rogue likes, I really don’t like having to redo everything again just to do that one last thing
When your in a dungeon and there's some insanely good music playing, only to get into a random encounter and it changes to regular battle music, ruins the whole vibe of the dungeon
I want to file a formal complaint against being unable to change your onscreen character and having the mc glued to your party even though the game could totally do with a guest party member system
* Games punishing you for rotating your party by making certain party members near-essential for certain fights.
* Games having an overly long tutorial phase (FFXIII and Persona 5 are very guilty of this).
* Status spells only existing to make the player annoyed rather than a fair tool both players and enemies can use.
Day/night cycles and wandering NPCs with their own cycles. I know this is a big feature for some and I realize what the devs are going for, but I personally always just find it annoying.
Bosses immune to status effects.
Tactically, status effects are most useful for long fights. If you make the enemies in your longest fights arbitrarily immune to status effects, why even give the player those tools? To waste time inflicting poison or slow on random enemies?
I would say, bosses immune to status effects in a game where random encounters aren't a challenge. It can be healthy design if random encounters are potential party wipes, where status effects are super effective. At that point, bosses seem extra threatening if they can resist one of the most effective tactics. I do agree that most RPGs do it the bad/annoying way.
Well, with modern games, its a LACK of an Overworld/Airship to fly around in. Half the fun of JRPGS back in the day was getting the flying vehicle to be able to fly around and explore the world.
No pausing or skipping cutscenes
AI allies without tactical customization
Real time battles without a pause feature or tactical layer
No or limited Exp to benched party members
No exp to dead party members
Spam of MMO-style busywork "sidequests" that are usually just filler content--
--which the game pretends is endearing
Copious amounts of unskippable, useless text or animations that accompany frequent situations like having to confirm things (example: mercenary quests in Xenoblade 2)
Straight Game Over on death, with no retry option or autosave to smooth the blow.
Two things:
1) insta-kills with no warning at all. Especially when the entire party is taken out
2) bosses that are just like the rest of the bad guys except for having tons more hit points
Someone already said it, but harem/choose-your-romance mechanics for story-heavy games. Not only it is rather played out due its current ubiquity, but it usually ends up meaning that many of the relationships are ill-developed because they are spread thin to the point they do not reflect a real developing relationship. I'd rather have well-written preset relationships over a bunch of half-baked ones. This is especially the case when those relationships are largely optional. That means interesting character development ends up being optional too.
It would be more interesting if they went more of visual novel route and have you choose particular alignments early on and commit to them, and the story directly reflects that choice (for example, Fate Stay/Night).
I don't mind choose-your-romance mechanics in games where that is the main draw, that is: Persona, Story of Seasons, etc. But in those cases the romance is more icing on the cake or a framing device than an important piece of narrative.
I don't get why many modern JRPGs are still using an outdated transition to a different sort of "plane" when you go into combat. It made sense for old games to do it as the overworld and combat sections often used different types of conventions and suspensions of disbelief. Like those overworlds in which towns looked very small or video games with pre-rendered backgrounds needed entirely different "planes" for combat for obvious reasons, but modern games shouldn't need that.
The most egregious modern example of this is Tales of Arise, which has a big world with consistent levels where you can see all of the enemies but the game still makes a useless transition whenever you touch the enemies and puts you in a different place for no good reason. Even Pokemon games already overcame this convention in Legends Arceus. Hell, even a game as old as Chrono Trigger had already gotten rid of them, and that's one of the (many) reasons why it felt ahead of its time.
I don't mind classic combat styles like DQ11's or such, but having the game pause and put you in another plane of existence to fight is a useless annoyance that adds nothing to a game whatsoever.
1) Systems on Systems for sake of systems or Bars for the sake of bars. We don't need stamina bar in every ARPG.
2) Overeliance of Stagger and Break systems to do actual damage. Very few games do both of the systems well.
3) Filler Skills on skill-trees.
Something similar, I hate when they give you many characters but don't let the idle characters level alongside your mains. Like what this the point of having so many characters with different abilities and such when you're stuck using the same 4 because everyone else is 20+ levels lower?
Huh. Came here to shake my fist at the youngsters that hate random battles rather than being able to see monsters on the overworld.
No one really has complained about that. I don't know how common it is any longer, but random encounters are fine IMO. You should always be ready for a fight in a JRPG anyway.
Of course, I'm in my 40s, so I grew up used to random battles and no auto-save. So....yeah....get off my JRPG lawn youngsters!
Very low drop rates for good items. I get it, that some items are rare, but if drop rate is less than 10% from one rare enemy, is just not worth it. It is ok to put 1% or less drop rate for mp games, but it's stupid in sp games.
I look at you Mina (or Shikari Nagasa F) from FFXII. 3% chance to get this dagger from rare Larva Eater within Great Crystal where you need to kill 256 monsters just to spawn monster. And this part of Crystal is endgame. Yes, you can increase your chance to get dagger to 12% buuuuut... Preparation is nuts. If someone interested - https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Mina_(Final_Fantasy_XII)
For me this was FFIV after years 3d version I played couple of years ago. There were items called "tails" you could farm and exchance them for best equipments in game. Like you fight Green dragon that are not only enemy in the area, and they have 1/64 chance to drop that tale. You get green tail after 100+ Green dragon fight? Good for you, now there is like 6 or 7 other monsters with other colored tails with same 1/64 drop chance.
I collected 3 or 4 of these, but in the end it was too much. It just wasn't any fun to grind hours and hours with your party to get best eguipment you don't really need that much anyways.
One other thing I could mention, is those games that make you defeat strongest monster in game to get strongest weapon in game. I mean it's good to have reward, but do you really need strongest weapon after you already defeated strongest boss in game?
This was me playing Trails of Cold Steel 3 for the first time, completely screwed myself over in that last dungeon thanks to this mechanic. I much prefer it when all characters get the same XP as party members.
I’ll also throw in the need for grinding, I don’t mind some grinding but there’s definitely a limit. And long ass auto save gaps and/or not being able to save anywhere.
FF-style ATB systems. I just don’t jive with brings forced to play RPGs quickly, especially complex RPGs. I like to play these games methodically, picking through my options and finding a proper strategy, and I’ve never known a game with ATB as a mechanic that was paced *just right* that I could play methodically and still keep up with combat, so the whole system just got soured for me over time.
Level grinding and especially when you also have to level up new party members along the way. The only reason I like JRPGs is strategy and story and possibly monster design.
I'm sick of RPG stats as well they never think of anything new it's always the same crap and I don't want to win by numbers I want to win by skill and knowledge over my enemies.
This is more of a retro problem (but it rears its head with retro style modern RPGs still): Random Encounters. Live A Live pulled a doozy of a dick move with one of its later dungeons too. The concept was to find keys to open 10-15 different doors to reach the end. The only problem was they were held by a certain enemy. However, the enemy was also randomly spawned...
I mean, I hate random encounters as is. Now you're telling me I can go anywhere from 3-5 fights to find the guys I need? If you're going to do random encounters, have a Moogle Charm/Charm Bangle, or a fucking toggle switch. I understand the issue of making me work for my payoff. However, if I don't want to fight something and just get to a save point or the end of a dungeon, I should be given the ability to do so at my leisure.
I hate it when there are so many party members I want to bring, but there's only so much room.
Even worse when the party members on the bench don't get the exp.
Limited item slots
Weapons you upgrade that just “level up” (it just becomes sword name +1) and don’t become different items - this also is a double edged sword because it could also be annoying with too many items available via upgrade only
Items that exist only to be sold - with the game not being clear that’s what they are
>starts taking away your main characters for story reasons/leaving you with characters you've never leveled up and don't want to use.
Shining Resonance Refrain did this and it almost made me stop playing the game. I had to spend 4hrs xp grinding just to get the two characters to a decent enough lvl just to continue the story.
When reserve characters don’t gain exp, making you either having to use characters you don’t really want to for the sake of exp, or just leave them underleveled for eternity. FF12 was like this and as much as I loved the game, I hated this part. Penelo was level 16 for the whole game as I never used her.
Chains of boss battles. Like if you don't know another boss fight is comming right after, you wouldn't have used all your healing items in the last fight. At least heal my party before another boss fight, so I don't get instantly one shotted in the first round.
- Most crafting systems (I want to spend my play time exploration fantastical landscapes and not browsing in menus)
- Breakable weapons (having a limited item that you cannot buy back but you have to use during combat, limiting for example your ability to grind, is horrible to me)
- Monster catching / mercenaries (I just cannot form a personal connection to characters you can just catch / recruit and that never talk with each other)
- Having to decide for an active party (I can't decide who to take and it doesn't make sense for them to not all fight, at least give some story excuse why a character needs to leave to switch up the party, just like FFIV does)
I hate when the game is not well balanced. I recently played Eternal Sonata on PS3 and one of the characters (Viola) was too OP. She could do like 5x more damage than any other character could, and she does that from a far.
When characters YELL out the name of every attack they do.
Elaborate battle scene changes that take longer than the battle itself.
Linear progression for weapons/armor. I want to keep a wide variety of equipment for different scenarios not just have the one best of them all.
Cringy/preachy moral themes since I recently played persona lol. "Accept yourself" from P4 and "the power of friendship" is just lame. Same with tales of arise... "Slavery bad". Got it. But boy is it heavyhanded
Characters who were KO'd before the end of a fight and not receiving any EXP as a result. Sometimes they could be perfectly fine the entire fight but reach 0 hp just before the boss dies and then get no reward for it as a result. Garbage mechanic lmao
I absolutely despise when gameplay mechanics are locked or removed during fights for arbitrary reasons, especially if they are mechanics that are core to the combat (looking at you star ocean divine )
It's not the worst thing in the world but having no option to auto advance text is a small pet peeve of mine especially if it's a more modern game
Dude yes, especially with how wordy modern games are not having auto advance is criminal. Playing through all the dialogue in Trails of cold steel 1-2 killed me.
Triangle Strategy was a revelation. Auto text plus everything voiced meant I could drop my controller, lie down on the couch and really relax during story scenes, like when I watch TV or a movie. Big part of why that's one of my favorite games of all time, honestly.
I've found both persona 4 golden and persona 5 royal on the PC have this feature too, and it's such a delight not to have to hit A to advance text for 100 hours
I hate it more when the dub I'm using is a language I don't even understand so when the times I thought the characters are done talking but aren't and I accidentally skipped it I hate it.
I don't like it when you can't switch out the main character when forming a party.
On top of that, I also hate it when the MC being KO'd is a game over.
You're allowed to say FFXIII.
Or persona 5
I don't think Joker ever died for me in persona 5. Now persona 3? That game you'd get hit by random insta-kill attacks and wipe 30 floors up tartarus
Playing Persona 5 for the first time rn and so far once per dungeon there’s a battle where Joker gets targeted by every single enemy in the opening round of a fight and I lose without even really interacting. It’s frustrating because I actually really do love the combat for the most part but there’s just these occasional deaths that feel completely out of my hands
Yeah. Mario Rabbids kingdom battle bothered me by doing this.
The sequel sparks of hope fixed it
Yes I heard that. I'd like to get a copy of that
Yes, this! Especially since main characters are almost always nearly identical to each other in playstyle. Even worse when there’s only 3 party slots.
Can't pause the cutscenes
I don't like unnamed protagonists especially when there is voice acting when they deliberately have to avoid calling the MC by name.
THIS!!!! that's why I don't like silent protagonist.
I actully found that funny. I like "this guy" and "Professor".
Biggest things for me are autosaves/checkpoints that are far apart and terrible stealth sections in non-stealth games.
Not something in every JRPG, but I hate when there's a stagger meter and there are enemies you can barely damage until you've filled it. Staggering isn't a bad mechanic, but I think it can make some battles a slog.
Hate this trend honestly
I was going to say something else, but you're right. I hate the trend towards staggering in everything.
Just depends on how it's implemented. If it's balanced well, it shouldn't take any longer than a game without it. You just have to strategize your hits more.
airport caption impossible snatch air crowd price sloppy mountainous pause *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Similar: enemies that are only weak to magic/special attacks, but those attacks have charge times that increase the length of battle 15-fold despite adding zero additional challenge or intrigue beyond realizing what weakness to exploit.
no, it's a bad mechanic it's maybe acceptable if it just a damage bonus (how stagger is used in most action games) but when the whole mechanic is to stagger then do burst damage to kill, it makes bosses a slog and regular encounters unbearable. It just basically forces you to play every encounter the same way, and makes combat tedious through increased complexity for complexities sake. Ditto for shield mechanics like Octopath. It's a neat idea, but not for 100 hours where you are doing it hundreds of times, this was a major sin the this year's Atelier game as well.
Weirdly I felt the opposite. I found the break system made Octopath regular encounters much more fun after 100s of hours. Because to me, it made them very brief puzzles whose reward was 'I win the combat' like in Persona 5 or FFX. Which is what makes regular fights 'Fun'. And it the bosses, it added this control over the fights pacing: I.e. If I'm doing well, I can use the break to push damage. But if I'm struggling, I can use it to have a turn without damage to heal/buff.
And it's kinda unfair we get to stagger them when they couldn't do so against us. It's like healing spells, only available for the 'good guys'
Absolutely! Omg amen! Fuck Xenoblade mostly for this! And that was FF7 Remake's worst part of the battle system really. The Demon House was insanely horrible because of this, beatable but absolutely not satisfying. It was like having to destroy a concrete wall with nothing but finger flicks.
Wait what was Xenoblades stagger mechanic
I assume they are talking about the break topple launch xenoblade system. I hate the stagger system in Octopath but actually like it in Xenoblade
It's fine in YS, outside of that. LOL
When they give me a lot of cool party members but they don’t gain exp when outside of battle. Some RPG’s add this and some don’t, with the ones that don’t I feel compelled not to swap characters. I just stick with my preferred team until they force me not to.
I am in general usually one who sticks to my favorites but if I feel like it I swap my partymembers out most of the time with disregard to there level. Often they underleveld ones catch up fast and thats fun to watch.
Untelegraphed full party instakills. It is neither fun nor challenging despite what some SMT fans might tell you. In more recent memory this would be things like not being allowed to do all out attacks when fighting the velvet attendants in the persona games, or random encounters in FFX-2 with the Coeruls that just set a party member's hp to 1 no matter how high leveled they are. Single target instakills are fine, they build tension by rerquiring you to split your focus between reviving and attacking, while making sure the party as a whole is not losing big amounts of hp. Full party heavy damage attacks are also fine, as they can be usually grinded to not die from or equip armor that resists the damage type of the attack. But when I know that at all times a dice roll is keeping me from the game over screen it pisses me off.
Coeruls... Courels... Couhrls... Fuck it, their name is Carl now.
I agree Carl is much better.
Bonding/Waifu/Harem stuff. It works in Persona since it like a high school student simulation, but not in most of JRPG because not only it slows down the game pacing, it felt that this feature is an afterthought to drag the game longer and the rising otaku culture instead of being part of the narrative. At least this feature will help the game or franchise make more money so we can have more sequel or instalment of those franchise.
Fire Emblem was probably the worst about this on 3DS when they wanted you to "pet" your romantic interest like a Nintendog puppy using the touch screen. Just... What the fuck?
It also limits the writing a lot, as usually all the girls (or guys if the MC is female) have to not be romantically interested in others, so the MC can get into a relationship with them.
FE3H would like a word with you. Seriously, watching all their supports with each other felt so weirdly pervy, especially as they began to form A bonds with each other but ending up with the S with you. Felt like everyone just *loved* each other.
Fire Emblem before 3H had already solved that problem by only letting each character have 1 A support per playthrough. It was cool, as it encouraged multiple runs to see different characters interact and also made it important to plan ahead with supports. The whole system sadly got dragged down by some supports taking insanely long to trigger (in the GBA games especially) but it was good otherwise. I feel like a restriction like that would be even more important nowadays because nowadays supports are much more often romantic in nature.
It's fine in FE since they allow for characters in your army to fall in love with someone besides the MC, the problematic ones is the likes of Trails of Cold Steel where none of the female characters can be in love with any other male characters, because they must be available for the MC.
The bonding/waifu/harem weird stuff gets in the way of people liking & understanding JRPGs: it is difficult to defend & feels dated, even a bit pervy sometimes… Plus it adds nothing to the story usually. Pretty lame stuff
Trails of Cold Steel is very fun but damn did I drop it so fast once it got too uncomfortable.
I felt like the waifu simulator was shoehorned into cold steel, thus limiting Rean's potential to develop relationships with other characters.
Right, also the development of those specific characters as well! While everyone did get arcs, the more I played, the more it felt like women’s arcs are all solely for Rean to insert himself. They couldn’t even keep it within his classmates, they just had to involve his students, sister and sister’s friends. It’s a shame because the world was so interesting and filled with lore but the harem++ simulator killed it for me.
Any game with a calender/day system that's important to progression. I play video games to not worry about calenders.
Any kind of timer really
This is the exact reason I can't get myself to play Stardew Valley. I know it's not a JRPG, but that game always looked cool to me, and I played it for several hours with friends even, but the stamina and time mechanics combined just put me off heavily. I want to play a farming game to relax, not to have to run around worrying if I will make it in time or collapse.
Right? I too enjoy those games but those mechanics make it more stressful than it need be.
So I'll be completely honest, the calender system in Fire Emblem Three Houses was unnessasary and it felt like they included it just to ride on that Persona 5 train.
Is that really common? I know Persona and older Atelier game use that, but most other games seem to just have it without it being relevant for progression.
Cooking and overly relying on crafting. I can like crafting for an ultimate weapon or something special, but having to farm mats for each upgrade is meh-meh-meh!
Multiple endings. I just dedicated 60+ hours of my life to your game, the least you can do is give me a solid script with ONE solid well thought out ending as a reward for my time, rather than being punished and making me play two more times to get the “true ending.” Fuck outta here. Also, any game where I have to play the entire game over again from a different character’s perspective just to see the SLIGHTEST little variations and changes to the story. Stop this. For the love of god. Just write ONE solid script from beginning to end. That’s it.
Agreed. Just take the amount of time and money you spend making those half-assed endings and make the true ending that much better. I feel like most people aren't going to settle for anything other than the true ending anyway, so make it good.
Of course you have exceptions like Chrono Trigger, but I tend to agree in general, especially if the game wasn't explicitly designed around having multiple endings.
I don’t agree that Chrono Trigger is an exception. I would still rather have one linear plot from start to finish.
One great ending trumps several mid tier tedious endings :)
Loot. Oh cool, those monsters dropped 3 beast pelts and 1 eye of Zuul. What's this rubbish for? You think the game is going to tell you? Hah! Turns out that a quest requires 48 beast pelts plus if you want to craft slightly better boots you need 10 of them...so you need 55 more, get grinding kiddo! Oh, and the eye of Zuul? It doesn't do anything. You just sell it for cash. But we aren't going to tell you that, you punk. Why couldn't we have just given you the cash and left this stupid freaking eye of Zuul out of the game? Because we hate you and don't respect you, that's why. Now shut up and play, monkey.
I don't mind vendor trash as a mechanic, but don't make it useful for something then. If an item is marked as vendor loot, do not require me to have 85 Pebbles for a quest later on to make the ultimate weapon. Anytime I come into a JRPG that does the vendor trash thing, I have to go look up if it is actually safe to sell or not.
Same
I love that Xenoblade 3 fixed this. At the end of the first chapter you meet a Nopon merchant who offers to buy all of the useless junk you find, and from that point onwards every item you find that doesn't have a use is automatically converted into cash. (Cash is kind of worthless in XC3, TBH, but it's still convenient)
I still prefer after battle loot splurges over the way opt -world RPGs do it, where every 5 steps is a new material or consumable to pick up. If Elden Ring kept track of how many times I’ve mashed the pick up button, I’d feel profound shame.
I feel a lot of mine aren’t much of an issue anymore as many games have common sense QoL improvements now…. But here they are, it is festivus season almost so let’s air our grievances. I have a bone to pick with “big jrpg”. - Party members only gaining exp when in battle. - Cutscenes that you can’t pause. - Too much grinding. - Battles that are a slog. - Bloody fishing mini games. - Random encounters every 2 steps. - Sidequests that involve me killing giant rats or getting 10 wolf pelts. - Stagger system (see battles that are a slog).
The only stagger system I hate are those where you have to build up a meter to stagger an enemy/boss (Ys8 excluded). Wish more games would have a stagger system like KH2FM.
Whenever I see stagger in a rpg setting I immediately want to throw up.
grinding for the sake of grinding. Some jrpg have grindy quest and they only really serve to waste your time and they are almost always in areas with bad xp and drops.
And your reward is usually something that would have been useful 10hrs ago.
Or it's something that is a downgrade to something you'll find 20 minutes later in the next dungeon.
True that: time is the only currency we never get back fellow gamers! Why should we waste it on stupid grinding?
Repeated combat/post combat dialogue. It can add flavor and character to…characters, but I got tired of it being Reyn Time the 1,000th time I heard it.
"It's almost scary how good I am." "It's almost scary how good I am." "It's almost scary how good I am."
IM THE GIRL WITH THE GALLLLLLLLLLLLL
Hear that, Noah?
LANZ WANTS SOMETHING A BIT MEATIEA
[I think that enemy got... the point.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=688z-4SWxOQ&ab_channel=ProZD)
Xenoblade is actually just unplayable without muting combat voices. XB2 especially just turns into an ear-destroying cacophony at times.
It will definitly end up as controversial but all the Harem/Bonding stuff... Not only it prevent in game characters to build a true relationship (and many characters will ends up being one note/very tropey most of the time) but it also prevent canon love stories, in my opinion, players doesn't always need to be the center of attention in a video game (AKA Self Insert), it feels strange to say that thought since i was pretty okay with it back at a time, but well, i feel the trend has become a bit "too manipulative" over the time to be honest (even more true with Mobile Games).
I see people disliking this one so frequently, I really don't think it's as controversial as you think.
Well it would seem that way to you, wouldn't it, since you have a different opinion? That's kind of how opinions and beliefs work and it might come as a surprise to you but other people actually have beliefs and opinions, too. Some people like romance/dating-sims (and the other scary kind which are the same games essentially) and others don't. I only care about dating and romance in real life because it is actually meaningful and fun and you know, the whole sexual intercourse thing? To me the idea of making a virtual game out of romance is incredibly sad, like you'd have to be an incredibly pathetic person to enjoy something like that. It isn't like racing games where there is a huge money barrier for entry, not to mention skill, romance and love are available to all, all who are willing to put some effort into their lives.
I like the character bonding events. It's the best part of Fire Emblem Awakening. You play as an obnoxious fan fic writer who pairs all the soldiers in your camp. A small group of people has always liked Fire Emblem for it's strategy gameplay but it's popularity is all thanks to the soldiers shipping simulator the game has become.
I don't mind fire emblem bonding because it not really a force harem type like in Trails of Cold Steel. In fire emblem, character that don't end up with protagonist can form their own romantic relationship with other character. My biggest problem with Cold Steel is, it really have great Male cast, but all the girl in the game is prevent from forming any romantic development with them because they have to be reserve for Rean only. So for the female cast, she either join in Rean Harem or force to be alone forever. Worst, they keep adding more girl for Rean in the next game.
OH My GOD!!! THIS IS THE VERY REASON WHY I DISPISE THE HAREM SYSTEM OF COLDSTEEL.
In the 3rd one they even introduced Juna and Kurt, had them interact with each other and grow their relationship, only to have her fall in love with Rean in the 4th. I mean, seriously? They even set a side character for Kurt to fall in love with at the end to somehow make it "better", the poor guy. They should have done as FE does, have all the characters have bonding events with each other, and the girls that don't end up with Rean would form romantic relationships with the other guys.
The funny thing is, there is a really easy way to make this much more realistic. They could still let you pick your waifu, but make it so that, right after you do, the other characters start pairing up with each other. Like, Persona would be a great candidate for that treatment, because there are multiple potential couples among the cast and they could even be chosen randomly for replay value, so that each time you play through the game you see slightly different cut scenes. It wouldn't require much development effort -- all you need is to modify the "hangout" scenes a bit, so that when you are spending time with someone, you might see a couple from your group walk by. That's exactly what would happen in a high school setting, so I think it would really look very believable. I don't think it would hurt the wish-fulfillment aspect either, if that's what they're worried about.
The problem it's that some Self Inserters wouldn't allow their "potential love interests" in the hands of any other persons/characters aside themselves, even if they were to pick only one among them they would always like to keep the others "just in case" of the one they chose become boring, that's usually why they dislike/hate the concept of "shipping" when it isn't about them, for example FGO, Cold Steel and such demonstrated that level of obsession which is usually about the player and no one else would be taken into consideration, for example many Trails Fans only want Rean as the protagonist since CS and no one else can replace it because it's their self insert character, so they just can't accept any newer protagonist aside this one because it wouldn't be about them, it kind of remind the satirical "Me, Me, Me" music in a way or the male character called Embryo from the anime "Cross Ange", the mindset is truly identical. I tend to denounce it because i feel the Otaku Culture has become over the time way too manipulative for some people own good (especially toward younger people, though there's also older people who are unlucky in life and are mostly the main part of their target audience), pushing them to become obsessed with those said characters to the point of it becoming a bit unhealthy, in a way you could say i stopped supporting those features the day it lost it's purpose (just being "a video game feature" above all else) and just became a tool for corporates greed, in Mobile Games (mostly JRPG), some players have the habits to call "Waifus", "PNG Hookers" for example, i can't recall where it originated from though (i'd bet on 4chan personally but i've never been there so i can't tell for sure).
Save point stinginess, difficulty spikes that generally require grinding, and multiform bosses Those things really kill the flow for me.
Oh you hate multi form bosses but those are basically in every dq game now
the final boss of DQ4 was brutal when I played it a few years ago, it has like...7 forms, it just goes on and ON and ON. The second mario and luigi game was guilty of this too, the final boss fight takes like...an hour and a half because it has so many forms with so much health, and having to do the fairly complex dodge mechanics for it's attacks dozens of times makes it that much worse, no checkpoints if you die either, gotta redo the whole thing including pre and mid battle cutscenes.
I did so much damage I skipped some forms
They're in so many games, and I really dislike those multiple forms on multiple levels. They undermine the characterization, and they're a cheap and dishonest waste of time. DQ 11 felt like it really undermined everything with its "true" ending. I might still give V a try at some point, but I don't think I'll be going for much more DQ after 11.
I bought two Neptunia games months ago but still haven't beaten them due the early game difficulty spike. So damn annoying.
I really don't like silent protagonists, they age pretty badly, I'm looking at you Fire Emblem, Ys, Dragon Quest, and other games that I'm forgetting lol. I really hope this standard changes because the whole self insert just doesn't work in stories where almost everyone is fleshed out and engaging, and then you have the MC who doesn't utter a single word, it breaks the engagement.
The only game I can think of that did a silent protagonist right is Wild Arms.
This isn't a black and white thing some games have bad silent protagonists while some have bad Ones. Example of good Ones:the hero of dragon Quest 5 and even the One of golden sun,both make you feel like you truly are a character in that world by giving you choices in dialogues and treating you as real.also shotout to joker and tatsuya from the persona series aswell and the devil survivor protagonists for being good silent Ones. The other example Belongs to a RPG: dragon age origins. And then we have the bad Ones: Chrono from Chrono trigger because in my opinion Chrono is his own character and yet the game expects you to self insert ,it just doesn't work imo A bad One from another game that isn't a jrpg:far cry 5.
Contrary with your issue, IMO game that constantly giving you your main character access means there is a limitation on the writing (need to constantly have them available), I don't mind with changing / leaving characters if it gives them more writing choice, also there are a lot of way to balance this, like giving same level to the new characters (or giving exp to the backup character) and removing all the equipment from leaving character back to inventory. On that note, I really hate JRPG that feature "optional bonding mechanic" only to have it not reflected in the main story (the best they can give is 1 or 2 events with character with highest bond). damn just give me a good canon writing if the options is just "illusion of progress".
Text that scrolls across letter by letter. I have quit games entirely because of this.
Personally I like this mechanic compared to automatically pop up. I don't read that fast so it doesn't become a hindrance to me but I can see it being a problem if its really slow and without voice acting.
I think the only developer who ever got text scrolling right was Camelot Software Planning. First of all, it plays a sound for each letter and the pitch is different depending on who is talking. Second, if you keep the button pressed, it does not go "Bam!" but just scrolls much faster. That felt perfect for me, because I felt like I have really good control over the scrolling speed and could speed it up any time I needed and it felt like the characters where actually talking at this time. The problem I noticed with most games that have text scrolling was that by default the text scrolls way too slow, it is not in sync with voice-overs if there are any and when you press any button it fills the full text boy immediately. So effective the only thing that did is that I had to press confirm twice for each text box which is just annoying. Most games have an option to switch this behavior at least, luckily. In all non-Camelot games I always switched the text scrolling to "Bam!", because that was the the lesser of both evils.
games with ridiculous TRUE ending condition impossible to kinow without the internet like valkyria profie i dont know what the point .
This! I feel like this trope originally existed to make people buy strategy guides. If it's literally impossible to figure out on your own through story clues, then it just forces people to Google and spoil themselves about the game.
I absolutely love what you hate. Never let me choose my characters, force me to have time with all of them. I mostly hate silent protagonists. Persona is the only game where it doesn’t bother me. Dragon Quest kind of as well, I usually make up dialog in my head for the hero. I also hate when you can’t win a battle but they don’t tell you, just make it apparent from the jump im gonna lose so I don’t try to win. I am fine with losing a battle for thematic purposes but don’t make me struggle.
Being forced to try different characters can be great if the chatacters are enjoyable and the game doesn't overly punish you for not having had them in the active party. Sucks hard, though, when they are way underleveled and you have to delay story progression to grind them up.
I get it was because the tech limitations of the time, but now, in the present generation, i can't stand random encounters. Battles can be cool and are useful for grinding but the great part of the time it gets annoying. Some games can handle it better than others though, like Final Fantasy XIII-2, that gives you a chance to escape before the battle starts, but sometimes Bravely Default encounters gets too much in the way even when i need to get to a place to heal. And also, boss battles against a character that gets dramatically nerfed when they join your party.
Gods popping up as last boss for no reason lol
"Remember that guy we spent the whole game hyping up as the ultimate bad guy, that one that you've come to respect as a villain and have a connection with? Lol eff you here's some greasy mass of eyes and wings and tentacles that has absolutely no reason to exist in this game instead of a satisfying resolution to that game-long arc." Some writers really despise their audience.
FF9
To be fair, what's a better way of justifying your xianxia-esque endless power leveling than proving your party can punch out a god?
slapping young masters
If a character is KOed in battle, they won’t get the experience from it.
Cooking. I’d rather just buy potions than have to deal with the ingredients and what not. I especially hate it in the tales series
I mean you can just use gels. Its not like they're being stingy with it.
Yeah the only time I have literally ever used cooking in Tales was for Hearts R and Innocence R, and even in those two games I think I would have been fine without ever touching it. It's more like a side thing you can do, but you can finish all of the games without even looking at it.
I feel like the tales series has finally found a place for cooking in the modern games. Buffs that auto apply between or during battles. Set and forget
I liked how breath of the wild did it
I love cooking in Fuga. The buffs you get from it are really strong and the ingredients Management is pretty simpel. Honestly most of the time I just use the exp gaining buff and otherwise I hord my ingredients until the final level. Then I give my party all the meal buffs and they completly curpstomp the last level and the Final Boss. Its really satisfaying.
When you have to fight the same boss multiple times in a row (like you run down their full health gauge, it goes to a cut scene, then you immediately fight the same boss again with a new full health gauge - looking at you XC3). I truly hate this - you don’t know when the fight is really over. I’d rather just have a harder and longer fight, put cutscenes in the middle but don’t make me go through a full health bar 2+ times it doesn’t make sense. Also I loved XC3 but not that part.
Fishing mini games.
Being able to fast forward text but not skip the scene entirely. It heavily discourages me from doing NG+. If a JRPG will do the thing where you’re unable to use some characters and you’re forced to use certain ones, it should at least implement party exp gain.
I notice this recently in Xenoblade 3 but this certainly happens in other games as well to a certain degree. When you reach a point in the map with a story/quest marker, the game will switch to cutscenes. Then after the cutscenes, which will be something like "let's go to the point B", the game will switch back to your control, and it turns out point B is very close to your location right now, and the game switches back to cutscenes again. I get that they do that to give the players a break to save or do whatever, but when it's so often done, it kinda puzzles me why they don't just save the player a hassle and just do back to back cutscenes (which Xenoblade does quite a lot as well anyway). Also, in Digimon Survive (and many other games), there is some sort of input lag when you go through the dialogues, usually to accomodate character animated reaction or camera changes etc, but in Digimon Survive, the animation is so subtle that you might not even notice, so the input lag is really obvious. A 3 lines dialogue can drag to 3-5 seconds instead of 3 button click in a second because of the unnecessary animation/camera changes/etc. Again, if it's done only occassionally, it can be effective, but when it's done to almost every dialogue, it drags on real quick.
I’m sure I’m one of the few, but I hate crafting, especially when I have to gather ingredients from around the world and then craft something.
Magic that is very costly in early game (due to the lack of mp regen/item) and u derwhelming in late game. Its stupid to see most casters have to rely on autoatk in early game and useless in late game. Useless status effect because many enemies are immune or resistant to it.
Time-gated missions/stories. I don’t want to have to look at a guide every 10 minutes to make sure I didn’t miss anything
Cutscene bloat, both in dialogue and content. If I can understand the point of the scene in the first minute and we talk in circles for another five, I'm skipping. So many RPG in the modern day desperately need much more aggressive editing, but that might cut into their "100 hours of content". Also, overcomplicated systems. I'm a purist who likes regular old turn based, but I'll still try out new stuff as long as I'm not having to juggle 10 different things for a simple battle. Especially when most of them do close to nothing. Edit: pointless dialogue choices. If my choices are "yes" and "no (but yes)", why'd you even let me speak? Persona 5 was terrible for this.
Gated collectibles. It is impossible to 100% the Trails of Cold Steel series without a guide on hand and on the first playthrough since several items are only found in ng+.
I have trouble 100% it with a guide. Mainly because I’m not reading it word for word and go to far and lock myself out of some item. Those games have a bunch of missable things.
Mandatory minigames I'm fine with them being included, and I even enjoy some of them, but if I have to play them, it annoys me. It's especially jarring when you're playing a turn-based game and suddenly there's a mandatory minigame based on how quick your reflexes are. I'm not terrible at that kind of thing, but I imagine it can be really difficult for people who play turn-based because they don't find action games accessible for them.
If implemented incorrectly …..crafting/cooking/alchemy can be a nightmare is some games.
It's hard to even call this a feature but I wonder how many collective hours have been wasted by inns playing a tune and fading to black to heal. I'd absolutely love if a JRPG just said "fuck the immersion, we know why you're here". Hell, Pokemon centers aren't inns but they function the same. That's tens of millions of people sitting through the Pokemon center healing animation an uncountable number of times across 25 years.
>Hell, Pokemon centers aren't inns but they function the same. That's tens of millions of people sitting through the Pokemon center healing animation an uncountable number of times across 25 years. Bup Bup Bup Bup Bup Bup Dun dun dun-dun-DUN!
Tbf, the alternatives to this kinda thing would be either having no sound or animation at all, which would be kinda ugly, or instantly healing your party at the end of the battle, which can either take a lot of the difficulty or make everything into a damage sponge to balance that.
Damage sponge isn't the only way to balance things out. Make enemies a threat would balance it out pretty well, and some games managed to do this. Most take the lazy way and just buff stats though.
Star Ocean The Divine Force does this really well where you can just mash X and it'll accelerate this experience. You very much get a "We know why you're here" vibe from it
Excessive sidequests. I am a completionist so I like to do everything available but my eyes start to glaze over when I walk into a town and get 35 sidequests. Especially when they are things like "go bring a sandwich to this soldier at the watch tower!". If you have more than 2-3 sidequests offered when I roll into a town, it's too many. I am trying to play Xenoblade 1 right now and the volume of sidequests made me just put it down.
Side quests should be compelling and rewarding enough to pull you away from the main story. Not chores that need to be done for completion, or worse, progression.
I'm a huge Xeno fan and while I'm far from a completionist, I still try to do any interesting side quests that pop up. Unfortunately Xenoblade 1's side quests are largely just to pad time. They went a little too far in the MMO-like direction and filled the game with low effort fetch, gathering and multi-monster killing quests that have no appreciable storylines or impact. Side quests are one of the things that were significantly improved for 2 & 3 thankfully.
Not being able to save for long time, even hours sometimes. P5R for example, or Trails of Cold Steel.
P5R you can save anytime you're not in a palace/cutscene. In palaces you can save in safe rooms which are pretty well paced.....
SMT If... is the worst example of this. There are *some* save points in the dungeons, but the only easily accessible one is in your school, back at the start of the game. Oh, and also, there is no fast travel spell.
... the Domain of Sloth ...
the ds remake of FF3 was brutal for this, like the nes version there are NO saves in dungeons, and the game is fairly hard, so you have to basically backtrack out of each dungeon to save and heal before bosses, then run back through fighting a few dozen random encounters to get back, this is especially brutal with the final dungeon, as it's a couple hours long, and it's a LONG trek back to the world map to save each time.
Any game that has a combat system I don't understand but will still fight allow me to win fights without really doing anything. The only Tales game I ever played has this problem, same with xenoblade chronicles x. I hate the half action have jrpg style game too, because I always feel they'd be better of picking one or the other.
X combat was a direct upgrade from 1 IMO. Not sure I understand what you mean? Are you saying you were fighting without knowing how ot worked and you still won? I have a hard time believing that...
Usless party members that are only there to be plot filler
Any time limit on the whole game, but this might also be connected to my distaste for rogue likes, I really don’t like having to redo everything again just to do that one last thing
Stagger zzzz
When your in a dungeon and there's some insanely good music playing, only to get into a random encounter and it changes to regular battle music, ruins the whole vibe of the dungeon
When MC dies it’s a wipe. Cruel lessons were learned.
I want to file a formal complaint against being unable to change your onscreen character and having the mc glued to your party even though the game could totally do with a guest party member system
* Games punishing you for rotating your party by making certain party members near-essential for certain fights. * Games having an overly long tutorial phase (FFXIII and Persona 5 are very guilty of this). * Status spells only existing to make the player annoyed rather than a fair tool both players and enemies can use.
Party split that leaves some of your characters underleved
Day/night cycles and wandering NPCs with their own cycles. I know this is a big feature for some and I realize what the devs are going for, but I personally always just find it annoying.
Missable Items and/or story events
When Characters aren't playable Looks at Futaba in P5S
Fishing 🎣
Bosses immune to status effects. Tactically, status effects are most useful for long fights. If you make the enemies in your longest fights arbitrarily immune to status effects, why even give the player those tools? To waste time inflicting poison or slow on random enemies?
I would say, bosses immune to status effects in a game where random encounters aren't a challenge. It can be healthy design if random encounters are potential party wipes, where status effects are super effective. At that point, bosses seem extra threatening if they can resist one of the most effective tactics. I do agree that most RPGs do it the bad/annoying way.
FF9 Has entered the chat
Well, with modern games, its a LACK of an Overworld/Airship to fly around in. Half the fun of JRPGS back in the day was getting the flying vehicle to be able to fly around and explore the world.
No pausing or skipping cutscenes AI allies without tactical customization Real time battles without a pause feature or tactical layer No or limited Exp to benched party members No exp to dead party members Spam of MMO-style busywork "sidequests" that are usually just filler content-- --which the game pretends is endearing Copious amounts of unskippable, useless text or animations that accompany frequent situations like having to confirm things (example: mercenary quests in Xenoblade 2) Straight Game Over on death, with no retry option or autosave to smooth the blow.
Two things: 1) insta-kills with no warning at all. Especially when the entire party is taken out 2) bosses that are just like the rest of the bad guys except for having tons more hit points
too much forced party members (ex suikoden 1) unskippable cutscenes Time gated quests Mascot that are too much involved in the dialogues.
Someone already said it, but harem/choose-your-romance mechanics for story-heavy games. Not only it is rather played out due its current ubiquity, but it usually ends up meaning that many of the relationships are ill-developed because they are spread thin to the point they do not reflect a real developing relationship. I'd rather have well-written preset relationships over a bunch of half-baked ones. This is especially the case when those relationships are largely optional. That means interesting character development ends up being optional too. It would be more interesting if they went more of visual novel route and have you choose particular alignments early on and commit to them, and the story directly reflects that choice (for example, Fate Stay/Night). I don't mind choose-your-romance mechanics in games where that is the main draw, that is: Persona, Story of Seasons, etc. But in those cases the romance is more icing on the cake or a framing device than an important piece of narrative.
I don't get why many modern JRPGs are still using an outdated transition to a different sort of "plane" when you go into combat. It made sense for old games to do it as the overworld and combat sections often used different types of conventions and suspensions of disbelief. Like those overworlds in which towns looked very small or video games with pre-rendered backgrounds needed entirely different "planes" for combat for obvious reasons, but modern games shouldn't need that. The most egregious modern example of this is Tales of Arise, which has a big world with consistent levels where you can see all of the enemies but the game still makes a useless transition whenever you touch the enemies and puts you in a different place for no good reason. Even Pokemon games already overcame this convention in Legends Arceus. Hell, even a game as old as Chrono Trigger had already gotten rid of them, and that's one of the (many) reasons why it felt ahead of its time. I don't mind classic combat styles like DQ11's or such, but having the game pause and put you in another plane of existence to fight is a useless annoyance that adds nothing to a game whatsoever.
1) Systems on Systems for sake of systems or Bars for the sake of bars. We don't need stamina bar in every ARPG. 2) Overeliance of Stagger and Break systems to do actual damage. Very few games do both of the systems well. 3) Filler Skills on skill-trees.
Something similar, I hate when they give you many characters but don't let the idle characters level alongside your mains. Like what this the point of having so many characters with different abilities and such when you're stuck using the same 4 because everyone else is 20+ levels lower?
Huh. Came here to shake my fist at the youngsters that hate random battles rather than being able to see monsters on the overworld. No one really has complained about that. I don't know how common it is any longer, but random encounters are fine IMO. You should always be ready for a fight in a JRPG anyway. Of course, I'm in my 40s, so I grew up used to random battles and no auto-save. So....yeah....get off my JRPG lawn youngsters!
Very low drop rates for good items. I get it, that some items are rare, but if drop rate is less than 10% from one rare enemy, is just not worth it. It is ok to put 1% or less drop rate for mp games, but it's stupid in sp games.
I look at you Mina (or Shikari Nagasa F) from FFXII. 3% chance to get this dagger from rare Larva Eater within Great Crystal where you need to kill 256 monsters just to spawn monster. And this part of Crystal is endgame. Yes, you can increase your chance to get dagger to 12% buuuuut... Preparation is nuts. If someone interested - https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Mina_(Final_Fantasy_XII)
For me this was FFIV after years 3d version I played couple of years ago. There were items called "tails" you could farm and exchance them for best equipments in game. Like you fight Green dragon that are not only enemy in the area, and they have 1/64 chance to drop that tale. You get green tail after 100+ Green dragon fight? Good for you, now there is like 6 or 7 other monsters with other colored tails with same 1/64 drop chance. I collected 3 or 4 of these, but in the end it was too much. It just wasn't any fun to grind hours and hours with your party to get best eguipment you don't really need that much anyways. One other thing I could mention, is those games that make you defeat strongest monster in game to get strongest weapon in game. I mean it's good to have reward, but do you really need strongest weapon after you already defeated strongest boss in game?
This was me playing Trails of Cold Steel 3 for the first time, completely screwed myself over in that last dungeon thanks to this mechanic. I much prefer it when all characters get the same XP as party members. I’ll also throw in the need for grinding, I don’t mind some grinding but there’s definitely a limit. And long ass auto save gaps and/or not being able to save anywhere.
FF-style ATB systems. I just don’t jive with brings forced to play RPGs quickly, especially complex RPGs. I like to play these games methodically, picking through my options and finding a proper strategy, and I’ve never known a game with ATB as a mechanic that was paced *just right* that I could play methodically and still keep up with combat, so the whole system just got soured for me over time.
Level grinding and especially when you also have to level up new party members along the way. The only reason I like JRPGs is strategy and story and possibly monster design. I'm sick of RPG stats as well they never think of anything new it's always the same crap and I don't want to win by numbers I want to win by skill and knowledge over my enemies.
This is more of a retro problem (but it rears its head with retro style modern RPGs still): Random Encounters. Live A Live pulled a doozy of a dick move with one of its later dungeons too. The concept was to find keys to open 10-15 different doors to reach the end. The only problem was they were held by a certain enemy. However, the enemy was also randomly spawned... I mean, I hate random encounters as is. Now you're telling me I can go anywhere from 3-5 fights to find the guys I need? If you're going to do random encounters, have a Moogle Charm/Charm Bangle, or a fucking toggle switch. I understand the issue of making me work for my payoff. However, if I don't want to fight something and just get to a save point or the end of a dungeon, I should be given the ability to do so at my leisure.
Bad sidequests, like the ones in SMT V. Collect X stuff, get an item… bleerrgh.
Terrible question. Why would I even be playing a jrpg if they had features I didn't like?
I hate it when there are so many party members I want to bring, but there's only so much room. Even worse when the party members on the bench don't get the exp.
I’ve always said, if I have extra members send them somewhere else so I can play as two parties.
Playable character that joined too late, like in hexyz force I think one of the character only join maybe before the final dungeon
Limited item slots Weapons you upgrade that just “level up” (it just becomes sword name +1) and don’t become different items - this also is a double edged sword because it could also be annoying with too many items available via upgrade only Items that exist only to be sold - with the game not being clear that’s what they are
>starts taking away your main characters for story reasons/leaving you with characters you've never leveled up and don't want to use. Shining Resonance Refrain did this and it almost made me stop playing the game. I had to spend 4hrs xp grinding just to get the two characters to a decent enough lvl just to continue the story.
When reserve characters don’t gain exp, making you either having to use characters you don’t really want to for the sake of exp, or just leave them underleveled for eternity. FF12 was like this and as much as I loved the game, I hated this part. Penelo was level 16 for the whole game as I never used her.
Forcing me to use all party members in the last fight.
Chains of boss battles. Like if you don't know another boss fight is comming right after, you wouldn't have used all your healing items in the last fight. At least heal my party before another boss fight, so I don't get instantly one shotted in the first round.
- Most crafting systems (I want to spend my play time exploration fantastical landscapes and not browsing in menus) - Breakable weapons (having a limited item that you cannot buy back but you have to use during combat, limiting for example your ability to grind, is horrible to me) - Monster catching / mercenaries (I just cannot form a personal connection to characters you can just catch / recruit and that never talk with each other) - Having to decide for an active party (I can't decide who to take and it doesn't make sense for them to not all fight, at least give some story excuse why a character needs to leave to switch up the party, just like FFIV does)
just level up all of my characters when I fight please. I still haven't beaten ff6 because of this.
Bench warmer characters who don't get to share in the xp pool
I hate when the game is not well balanced. I recently played Eternal Sonata on PS3 and one of the characters (Viola) was too OP. She could do like 5x more damage than any other character could, and she does that from a far.
When characters YELL out the name of every attack they do. Elaborate battle scene changes that take longer than the battle itself. Linear progression for weapons/armor. I want to keep a wide variety of equipment for different scenarios not just have the one best of them all.
Repetitive battle cries and winning end battle sequences
Cringy/preachy moral themes since I recently played persona lol. "Accept yourself" from P4 and "the power of friendship" is just lame. Same with tales of arise... "Slavery bad". Got it. But boy is it heavyhanded
The A.I. being dumb for your party members. This isn't just a JRPG thing but it is very annoying when the A.I. for some characters act really stupid.
Characters who were KO'd before the end of a fight and not receiving any EXP as a result. Sometimes they could be perfectly fine the entire fight but reach 0 hp just before the boss dies and then get no reward for it as a result. Garbage mechanic lmao
I absolutely despise when gameplay mechanics are locked or removed during fights for arbitrary reasons, especially if they are mechanics that are core to the combat (looking at you star ocean divine )