General News - Best 5 JRPGs 2019 @ JRPG Jungle

JRPG Jungle's JRPG top list for 2019 and most anticipated list for 2020:

2019 GOTY! My Top 5 JRPGs of 2019

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My 10 Most Anticipated JRPGs of 2020

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More information.

Just looking at that screenshot is like ugghhhhh

I'm having a blast right now with dragon quest builders 2.....think mine craft on steroids with a story.

JFarrell71 said:

Just looking at that screenshot is like ugghhhhh

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So true. I can't even fathom how people could bear to play these games. Even if I got them for free I wouldn't even redeem the key.

bjon045 said:

So true. I can't even fathom how people could bear to play these games. Even if I got them for free I wouldn't even redeem the key.

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Great? I enjoyed quite a few of these games for the narratives....I cannot fathom how people miss out on some great stuff by immediately taking that mentality.

rune_74 said:

Great? I enjoyed quite a few of these games for the narratives….I cannot fathom how people miss out on some great stuff by immediately taking that mentality.

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Good try, but nah. I've played more than my fair share of JRPGs. Nothing immediate about it. The truth is that they're mostly insipid. The writing standards are subterranean. The mentality is juvenile. I just looked up Atelier Ryza, one of their top 5, and this is how the developer describes their own game: "'The concept of this title, the latest in the series to depict a new "Atelier" world, is "True-to-life youths that develop together, even if just a little bit'". There is swimsuit outfit DLC for god's sake.

I'll happily miss those narratives (though not really because they're all the same and have been for decades, so really I've already seen these narratives albeit with names flipped around)

JFarrell71 said:

I just looked up Atelier Ryza, one of their top 5, and this is how the developer describes their own game: "'The concept of this title, the latest in the series to depict a new "Atelier" world, is "True-to-life youths that develop together, even if just a little bit'".

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Yes, that's how Japanese sometimes sounds when translated into English. I'm sure there's plenty of English phrases that lose a lot of their meaning when it's translated into their language as well.

I know there are a few exceptions but the entire jrpg genre is very stale - it really hasn't evolved much at all from the jrpgs that I used to play when I was much younger in the 80's/90's.

When you compare that with what has happen in western cRPG's i.e. games like Pathfinder Kingmaker, Disco Elysium, Original Sin, Witcher 3, Skyrim etc etc it's hard not to see how stale it is.

bjon045 said:

I know there are a few exceptions but the entire jrpg genre is very stale - it really hasn't evolved much at all from the jrpgs that I used to play when I was much younger in the 80's/90's.

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That, and, after awhile, you begin to realize how downright juvenile most of them are. Unless you're a big fan of anime or Japanese culture in general, I don't understand how adults can enjoy them.

I still pay some attention to titles from Square Enix out of nostalgia, but that's pretty much the limit of my interest when it comes to JRPGs.

bjon045 said:

When you compare that with what has happen in western cRPG's i.e. games like Pathfinder Kingmaker, Disco Elysium, Original Sin, Witcher 3, Skyrim etc etc it's hard not to see how stale it is.

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Probably a matter of perspective. Because considering the list, it is quite hard to reach a similar conclusion.

Usually, j RPGs have still some concerns about gameplay and improvements.
Story wise, they usually are better in terms of thematics, character developpment etc

The so called western RPG scene is not stale, it is one that provides less and less. There still is flow but backward flow.

Seeing the j RPG scene as stale is like seeing the FIFA scene as stale, thinking that gamers buy the same game year in year out.

I think if Kojima is watching this .. wretched cesspool of a presentation he is doing a FacePalm. No wonder he decided to revolutionize the industry.

Not being able to understand different people can have different tase and inability to understand there is actually no correct view is clear sign of immaturity, not playing jRPGs.
If playing masculine, dark, western game makes you feel more adult, great for you, if you need that. I, for example, have no problem to enjoy both.

mercy said:

I think if Kojima is watching this .. wretched cesspool of a presentation he is doing a FacePalm. No wonder he decided to revolutionize the industry.

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Could you please remind me which jRPGs were designed by Kojima?

Japan does something a lot that's pretty foreign to me. Where we would segregate our games by age groups (kid's games, teen's games, adult's games), many JRPGs just mix them together - making sure there are elements in the game to satisfy everyone.

I could compare it to our big budget movies and gender. There's some movies very much directed at men or women but most of them will have elements to satisfy both genders' taste tendencies. Japan can often do that with age groups, so you get a game like Valkyria Chronicles with "WW2 for 8 year olds" story line in a fairly difficult tactical squad game, or Tales of Berseria giving advice on what foods are good for you coming out of the mouth of a demon woman who's dressed like a stripper.

Not all of them have a jouvenile storyline...attelier for instance isn't my cup of tea. Funny enough a lot of the Jrpg's were inspired by ultima. To blindly label them all junk and for kids is ignorant at best.

Kojima hasn't developed an rpg....he also makes games that are a bit off, metal gear had some weird stuff in it.

I really don't give a crap if some of you can't understand how adults can like them(insulting much?)

Looks like a few people might need some…

Zloth said:

Tales of Berseria giving advice on what foods are good for you coming out of the mouth of a demon woman who's dressed like a stripper.

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Some people say it ain't a masterpiece.
What kind of shittaste those people have?!
Berseria is a game with ridiculous combat for braindead and everything else absolutely perfect. If you can't care less about combat just as me, it's a mustplay before you die.

That aside, I can't care less about generic grinders regardless of their looks.
If you can eat pizza 365 days in a row without getting bored of same old same old, respect to you. I can't.
Another products type I can't care less about are PC games that are unplayable with k+m.

One of top 5 is Cold Steel game, the third one. My biggest problem with the second was in the end it turns into a horrible grinder. I have to admit that before it happens it's very good. But I can't trust the third game doesn't repeat the same mistake until I see it on my PC.
But #1 is some Atelier game with the most brilliant code optimization that ever appeared on PC - stutters until you plug mushrooms in your PC.
Whatta joke.

Under the cover of the weakness of JRPG stories, western RPG stories should be any good and even somewhat worthy of adult interests.

Remains to find out how. And which ones.

Usually those stories are written for very young adults, late teenagers who have either zero to little adult life experience since adult life ranges from 1x to 4x years old more.

A lot of them are tales of empowerment, with heroes that have little to no social attachment, out of soil heroes, murdering hobbos and stuff. Very little to connect with an adult experience, way more fitting to college kids and like. They start in life, they will make big etc

Skyrim: generally admitted as having no story even though it is one of the few that enables to get a spouse and build a family, to settle down.

Disco Elysium: not even a RPG, point and click adventure

ME: the exceptional hero amongst exceptional heroes, biggest trope ever, saved an entire galaxy.

TW3: lone hero making his rules, empowerment tale, supposedly strong female characters that actually first and only exist through their sexual appeal taken from juvenile fantasies as they are no match to any woman body. The historical Poland approach.

Etc

At this stage, it could be required to point out story themes, elements or whatever that are better done in western RPGs and what treatments characterize an adult perspective and how.

Quite hard to remember a story that could be branded as adult or something for what ground.

JRPG stories not delivering does not mean western stories delivering.

If not, which one, what and how.

RPGW's focus is growing more incoherent year by year...at least jRPG's can in some sense be still construed as role-playing games. The aesthetic and tone of most is a huge turn off for me, tho'. I snagged FFXV only bc it was dirt cheap on a recent sale and the anime aesthetic isn't over the top.

Actually the level of anime in FF15 can be more disgusting than in any other FF game (of those I've played):


Luckily, the irritating GMO chicken are optional and are easy to ignore while playing the game. When you don't see that atrocity, the game is as far from anime as it can be. These are actual ingame screenshots - and you can't see this in any anime:



Lemme remind you that some people on this board called the city in RDR2 as the most beautiful city in videogames they've ever seen. Whatta joke.
Such a shame the FF15 story is so boring the game ended up being style over substance irrelevance.

Here's hope at least some game designers will understand that only beauty is enough only to low IQ reviewers and that there's an audience that wants more: