The genre of the JRPG has had a rough evolution, at some stages of technology it just hasn’t worked, but beyond that, some core sins should never be committed. So here we are to read out Power Up Gaming’s stone tablet of divine wrongs that should never be considered gospel.
Yes, this is a piece where a journalist pretends to be a complete expert about something, designing games, they have never done at a professional level, I can just hear the surprise.
Still, we all know games that have ruined themselves by not adhering to some of these sins and been utterly savaged by critics as a result. There are also games referenced in this list that have aged horribly so, without further ado, take a big sigh and get ready to face the real demons facing game design within JRPGs.
1. Don’t be afraid of linearity
I realise that I will be burned alive like a Tudor-era heretic for this (editor’s note: trust me, his personality warrants it), but I don’t mind linear RPGs. I love the genre for its big stories with flashy fantasy elements that are often quiet allegories for the world’s woes. If the game is forcing me in a particular direction then I don’t mind, so long as the story and combat are fun.
Final Fantasy XIII, the game which is the best example of receiving flack for this, had real issues but the linearity wasn’t it. It was the battle system, it was the lack of other more light-hearted distractions, it was a levelling system that was frustratingly gated with no disguise.
Your favourite game inevitably has at least a long section that restricts your movement quite considerably. So developers, don’t be afraid of this. People online are just angry because most of them are men who haven’t done therapy, I have and I’m fine, my self-portrait is below.
2. Points of no return should not be a thing
There is one thing that makes an RPG player stop engaging with the game the fastest. I’ve had it with Golden Sun Dark Dawn and Tales Of The Abyss. Nothing compares to it, meeting the shadow of it will tattoo a gamer’s conscience more than crippling loneliness.
It’s realising they missed something that was before a point of no return, which they are now after and can no go back to retrieve missed content.
That realisation kills a playthrough faster than I can find an excuse to use an editor’s note joke in an article. If a bit of content gates you out of finding something which is very obviously teased later in the game, then you will stop playing. RPGs are typically quite long games, and so they should be: at their best, they are long tales that take you on an emotional journey with characters that challenge your own convictions but who you eventually learn to love. So missing out on items, only to have it rubbed in your face later down the line is an instant mood killer but one solution to this is…
3. Making sidequests subtle has aged awfully
You know what the most boring thing in RPGs is? Hunting every potential corner for a sidequest that could add engaging further content in a game. Seriously, combing over every bookshelf, talking to every slight person and their literal dog is frustrating. Sometimes it’s great, I want to hear what the residents say/bark and how it adds to the world, but I need an indication of where the meat will be.
Please, hide items, weapons, that kind of thing, in a bookshelf because, in the long run, those things are cool but ultimately inconsequential. Sidequests add a great deal to the bone so don’t hide them away in subtle corners of the game. In general, the genre has got a lot better with this and has icons on a map to indicate where they are so I can plan my exploration around them. If it’s a smaller gaming session, I know I can make every action reveal more of the story or the world or tackle some of the smaller elements if I’m tired.
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth did a great job at this, you still got rewards for exploring and tackling every corner of the world, but you also knew exactly where the sidequests were and you could factor in the time you had and make that decision.
4. Invest in voice acting
To this day, I don’t understand the very warm reception to the above Dragon Quest XI as it commits this sin in absolute abundance. This is the game I’ve put the most hours in to try and love but still fail. It’s incredibly average but it’s core sin is the fact it’s main character is not a bystander in the overall plot, they are a core element…but they never react. They’re not just a silent protagonist, their face does not move or react. It would be a relief if that game was water because I’d never be immersed long enough to drown.
You have to have the characters show some sort of emotion and feel things if they are going to be a major role in the story. The YS games get away with it, as Adol is effectively a tourist who gets caught up in a wider tale but then he also reacts physically and there are dialogue options. But away from the negatives! You remember a great voice acting performance, Ralph Ineson as Cid is a performance to applaud. I referenced this as one of the amazing aspects of modern gaming and it’s true.
Editor please hire me a soundproof room to get this out of my system, otherwise, this topic could become a white paper.
5. Be wary of repetition
I replayed Golden Sun: The Lost Age earlier this year and I’m not being overly dramatic but I think it killed part of my childhood and I now need to revisit my EMDR therapist. I also need a cup of tea but that’s not important right now.
Why? God awful repetition. You see as a child you tend to not notice some aspects of game design and repetition is something you give a great deal more leeway to. The Lost Age had the elemental lighthouses, which are fine, but then they introduced the elemental rock dungeons, which are long dungeons with little plot surrounding them. We get it, the four elements, we already had the lighthouses to emphasise that.
So some repetition is fun, it establishes themes and familiarity. Tales Of Berseria has a section that does this fantastically, do an adventure in point A, have a plot point at the base area, do another adventure in point B, yet offhand it only gets to point C before changing things up. The familiarity was fun and felt secure knowing the pattern, but removed it before it got boring and used the pattern to sharpen the surprise when the plot formula got changed.
I’m getting too serious… I need another election.
6. Make sure your fighting system gets tested by strangers
A fighting system needs to be good in an RPG, because you will spend a very long time in your game fighting. It can’t become a horse designed by a committee, it needs to be good simple enough to be fun but develop in a way that doesn’t become overly complex. Everyone has different tastes, make no mistake, but the quality has to be there.
It will get boring at some stage, there will be points where someone just wants to get on with the story so just make sure that the system is as fun and fresh as possible. I often mock Sea Of Stars for its fighting system – it does not develop after the first hour of gameplay – but that core system means the tedium of no development is hidden well. See below, they’re lying to you, but they’re not awful at it so they get half a pass.
If it is a wildly dramatic moment where the player knows a huge development is about to happen, then lessen the fights. In the most literal way I’ve ever meant this, pick your battles.
7. If a strategy is cheap, keep it subtle
For all that I rant and rave about Final Fantasy, I could equally say the same of Tales Of Berseria. Behind Remake/Rebirth it’s my favourite RPG of all time, but it has one tiny little flaw: lead character Velvet is horrendously overpowered. If you know what you’re doing with her, and it isn’t hard to work it out, then battles don’t tend to be wildly difficult. It’s an obvious strategy and one that works, so you’ll likely stick with it.
But it is a weakness of the game overall. Strategies that see the player being overpowered should be a reward for intelligence, a ‘oh so you figured it out, nice work here’s insanely easy mode’ from the developers.
Anyway, keep it as a reward, don’t make breaking your own game obvious. That’s what easy mode at the start of the game is for.
8. As Tony Blair once said: minigames, minigames, minigames
I love the genre, but it can be intense sometimes. Having one or two high-quality minigames that can develop as the game goes on helps so much.
I think I lost about six hours or so to Chocobo Racing in Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, another 10 hours to Queens Blood in the same game, similar amounts of time to fishing in YS: VIII and zero hours to Blitzball. A great minigame helps a JRPG immeasurably. The genre can be difficult to find downtime in, grinding isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and the story can be intense or not suited to a brief play session.
Now a great minigame keeps you in the world you love, but with a great bit of variety and often with minor boosts later down the line for your combat or story. A great minigame adds so much value and if you’re aiming for a longer RPG then it’s downright essential.
9. Good guy? Nope, go away
Gaming industry I implore you: stop with the ‘I’m the good guy’ ‘Yeah, but why?’ ‘Because I’m the good guy!’ trope.
We’ve seen a lot of boring characters that are just good for the sake of being good. It’s boring – Tales Of Arise’s Alphen for example was utterly inane. He had no personality, he was just ‘good guy’ and that trait is pursued to an extent the finale feels like an incredible satire of JRPGs as a whole. But no, it was serious, it was just so bad it looked like an incredible joke. You can see Alphen below, I’ve had to keep his back turned to hide his obscene lack of personality.
People just aren’t that simple, even if they do the right thing they tend to have deeply-seated motivations that are more complex, like anger or injustice. People just aren’t 100% good and even if they reach the right conclusion, they’re often being propelled by emotion that isn’t clean and is often impure.
Even in a fantasy land with dire wolves, goblins and towns full of people who never assault you for randomly coming up to them and starting a conversation, I still want to see a bit of reality here.
10. Superbosses, yes, but give a bit more
Superbosses are an established staple of the genre now. Getting through the game and embracing the emotional conclusion, it helps to have a warm-down within the game itself. Cue superbosses, the final challenge, the way to stay involved in your favourite game.
Yet they can so quickly become a huge weakness.
Octopath Traveller is a great game, a wonderful experiment with a brilliant graphical style. Yet it’s big superboss is a 10-boss gauntlet with no saving during any of it. In even better news, there is no new dungeon to level up in, and there is a wildly high spike in difficulty between the first eight bosses and the last two. See the danger here? It’s a huge spike in difficulty, no new place to level up in to disguise the rise and a huge time investment just to get to the point of challenging the main fight again.
It left a bad aftertaste. You need a dungeon associated with a superboss to prevent it from becoming an awkward full stop and also, yes, they should be very difficult. It should be the perfect challenge, but give players a gentle way of rising to it.
Final Fantasy Game Design Golden Sun JRPG Tales Of Arise
