next »

[Schilcote]

I'm designing a JRPG-esque game with the stated intent of subverting as many parts of the standard JRPG experience as I can get away with, both from a story and a mechanics standpoint. It's kind of a mechanics-as-metaphor thing.

I'm wondering if y'all have any suggestions as to how I ought to go about 'breaking' the traditional JRPG mold, mechanics-wise? The combat system is a turn-based system with very little mechanical character/equipment advancement (the characters will 'level up' maybe three times in the entire game); I haven't really plotted it out completely, but it'll be a reasonably standard TBS.

Any thoughts?

[ink.inc]

grind
magic being worthless compared to regular attacks
status effects being garbage
lack of actual strategy
broken endgame
item hoarding
difficulty plateaus (game difficulty flatlines)
game doesn't actually get going/interesting till hours in
lack of interesting build paths

melodramatic plot
plot in general
scrappy male teen lead

[s0]

everything in sandoval's list plus:

random battles (as in you walk around and suddenly the battle screen pops up)
separate battle and exploration modes


but tbh i don't really get what you're trying to do. how does your game subvert jrpg mechanics when it's a standard tbs what is it a metaphor for? do you mean you're not going to copy the actual mechanics but just use them as a "theme" to frame your standard tbs gameplay?

[ink.inc]

i play a lot of jrpgs and hate almost every single one

exceptions to this rule include:

etrian odyssey 4
persona 3
ffx (even though it has almost all the problems i mentioned)
radiant historia
chrono trigger
golden sun 2
suikoden 5

[JWK5]

I play a lot of JRPGs and I hate... maybe 5% of them.

*Long-winded dialog and attempting to explain too much all at once. Xenosaga was horrible about that, just as I started to enjoy it suddenly I am locked into 30 minutes of exposition. To be fair, I dislike it in any game (Metal Gear Solid 4 put my patience to the test). One of the things I've always liked about the Dragon Quest games is that they always manage to set you off on a mystery but most of the dialog is short and to the point which keeps you moving right along at a nice pace.

*A lack of environmental interaction. Again, it is something I dislike in just about any game but in an RPG it is much more glaring to me. Final Fantasy 13 is a prime example, all this cool scenery but you're confined to a small path and can't hardly activate or manipulate anything. Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6 had tons of treasures stashed all around, hidden paths to take, etc. It made exploring the environments feel like an Easter egg hunt. Radiata Stories did an amazing job at injecting life into the environments with villagers having day to day schedules (with different animations and dialog depending on where they are and what the are doing) and allowing you to kick (literally) just about anything to knock out hidden items or trigger brawls with NPCs.

*Accomplishments that do not impact the game's society. Nothing like having your character perform all these feats of heroism and nobody notices. I enjoyed backtracking to the towns in Dragon Quest 9 after I'd completed various dungeons and milestones because the villagers always seemed to have new things to say about what I'd accomplished or the current state of affairs in the game world. Not enough RPGs do that, it's a shame.

*Options reduced by obsoletism. I hate how by the end of the game you have hundreds of spells, weapons,items, etc. but only 4 or 5 of them are actually worth a damn anymore. It's as if the more options you are given the less options you actually have. Radiant Historia suffered from that to a degree but it also broke away from it by giving you skills that played into the combat's puzzle-like elements. Your skills were just as useful for how they positioned the enemy as they were for the damage (etc.) they inflicted.

*A lack of world cohesion. I've played more than a few RPGs where the whole world seems to exist in little pockets that have nothing to do with each other. You wind up roaming town to town with no real sense that anything is intertwined. I liked how the Suikoden games have an overall sense of impending wold conflict that unifies each location with the setting as a whole.

[Schilcote]

but tbh i don't really get what you're trying to do. how does your game subvert jrpg mechanics when it's a standard tbs what is it a metaphor for? do you mean you're not going to copy the actual mechanics but just use them as a "theme" to frame your standard tbs gameplay?

Well, the plot is that you have a really bog-standard RPG world. There's a prophesy that a dark wizard will take over the world and eat everyone's Halloween candy etcetera etcetera. But then aliens (the PCs) from another universe accidentally crash-land on the planet this is taking place on, and their being there completely screws up fate. So you have the standard plot trying to play out, but the arrival of these guys with laser guns and power armor throws it completely off the rails and new, more interesting problems crop up as a result.

The mechanics are then also 'screwed-up' versions of the standard RPG mechanics; everyone's coming at the PCs with swords, spells, and plate-mail, but the PCs have rocket launchers and particle beam rifles. Magic is done by writing simple computer programs that can have effects on the map, so for example if you want to cross a river you can move all the heat from the water to the nearby air and freeze it. Or, if you want to kill a guy, you can write a spell that transfers ambient heat into him. The PCs don't level up; they start with all the abilities they end with (except new spells, which can be written by the player and/or found in the world), and only get more powerful when they find better weapons from their downed ship. Resting at inns doesn't restore your HP; it just makes you heal a little bit faster. Monsters don't drop money; you have to actually do things for and or mug people to get cash.

It's not all planned out, but I hope you can kinda see what I'm going for with this.

Lots of great ideas here; and here I'd thought I'd thought of everything!

*Accomplishments that do not impact the game's society. Nothing like having your character perform all these feats of heroism and nobody notices.

[...]

*A lack of world cohesion. I've played more than a few RPGs where the whole world seems to exist in little pockets that have nothing to do with each other.

This was one I thought of myself, in fact. I already have a little sort of sub-plot where you pass through a town whose water supply gives them super-fertile soil; but the water has recently lost its magical properties, and the town's economy has collapsed as a result. There's people running a caravan from the next town over to bring the people there food, but they're charging many times what they paid for the food. The PCs have a little philosophical/political argument about this, and then in the next town you can invest in a new trading company that can compete with the other merchants and bring the price down. Even later, you discover that the Bad Guys have been using the power from the magical water to further their evil schemes and have the opportunity to fix it, thereby reducing the prices on most things in the surrounding towns because the local economy starts working again, plus strengthening the kingdom that town is a part of while at the same time getting their king to like you.

[ink.inc]

additions to jwk5's points:

if you can't write a good plot or create interesting dialogue, DONT DO IT AT ALL. or at least have it be as minimal as possible. like chrono trigger. like jwk5 said, keep it short and to the point. writing for jrpgs has been horrible 99 times out of 100, don't listen to what any nerd says otherwise.

make all cutscenes be skippable. and if you're fighting a boss for the second time, just skip the fucking intro cutscene automatically.

have good exploration. this is what made kh1 interesting, and kh2 a huge piece of shit. verticality is always a good thing.

generic fantasy settings are incredibly boring. find something else.

[Schilcote]

if you can't write a good plot or create interesting dialogue, DONT DO IT AT ALL.

Well, I like to think I'm a pretty decent writer. I'm also thinking of bringing on a real professional writer to split the workload with, so that shouldn't be a problem.

generic fantasy settings are incredibly boring. find something else.

It's only generic on the surface; I intend to make the world significantly more detailed and interesting when the player actually gets into it.

[ink.inc]

i meant 'you' in a loose sense; i was more referring to the industry in general

[ink.inc]

elemental rock paper scissors is a boring mechanic

[Dan_Tsukasa]

Is this game to be 3D or 2D?

I do agree with many of the previously posted points, however I strongly disagree that 99 out of 100 JRPG plots are terrible. There is no doubt, some terrible writing involved at many points, but the overall plot isn't usually terrible, its all the smaller events that end up being badly written.

Final Fantasy 13 did a lot of things wrong JRPG wise, trying to change the formula without seemingly thinking it through properly, the combat system was fine, but it was too linear as a game, a stark contrast to what people expect from the genre. The actual plot and lore of the world was well done, but most of the events and dialogue between was terribly written and unrepeatable, much of it feeling forced, this is something you want to avoid.

Characters who speak should speak as though its natural, not like they're reading from some sort of script where they want to sound dramatic, of course part of that is voice, but even text can still sound unnatural and forced (some of the dialogue from FF8 would be a good example here).

Generally speaking JRPGS are aimed at existing JRPG fans, and so things that annoy that core audience are issues, things that might annoy say COD players, whilst still perfectly valid, may not matter to you if you don't plan to broaden your audience, so target audience is quite important in a JRPG I think, as some standards of JRPGS, some of things that make a JRPG a JRPG, such as turn based combat, are a huge barrier for some people, but for many JRPG players thats the accepted standard and so many, like myself, actually rather like turn based combat.

[ANtY]

the only ones I liked were Chrono Trigger and FF6, but CT is superior to FF6, no doubt about it

[Schilcote]

Is this game to be 3D or 2D?

2D. I'll hopefully be getting a really good sprite artist on board as well.

Generally speaking JRPGS are aimed at existing JRPG fans, and so things that annoy that core audience are issues, things that might annoy say COD players, whilst still perfectly valid, may not matter to you if you don't plan to broaden your audience

Right. I intend to make the game as accessible as I can without compromising quality; hence eschewing the traditional Final Fantasy-style menu-based combat in favor of a graphical TBS system (which I realize has been done before as well, of course, but that means I can look at previous examples of things done wrong and right). I doubt I'll attract much of a spunkgargleweewee (Ben Croshaw's term for low-effort FPS games) audience, but frankly I'd rather those people stayed away anyhow.

the only ones I liked were Chrono Trigger and FF6, but CT is superior to FF6, no doubt about it

I'm shamed to admit I've never actually played more than the beginning of Chrono Trigger. I don't feel its really ethical to play it on an emulator 'cos there's all sorts of revival versions of it for sale, but I don't really have money for games or consoles.

[ink.inc]

however I strongly disagree that 99 out of 100 JRPG plots are terrible

i said writing not plots!

[Dan_Tsukasa]

however I strongly disagree that 99 out of 100 JRPG plots are terrible

i said writing not plots!

Ah my bad.

Though an interesting thing to note is, its not bad writing, its bad translation, translation done by translators who's jobs are to translate, if they were gifted writers then their jobs would be writing instead of translating (generalizing here).

Some RPGS are genuinely better in their original language, where some of the 'tropes', such as say, Tifas never telling cloud the truth about 'that day', are largely cultural things, thats strange as hell in western society but its a part of the culture from which the game hails. This said, I've played some RPGS that are not of such a high writing quality even in Japanese, but some, like FF8, suffer greatly from slightly unnatural sounding translations.

This is of course me being pedantic, as I'm well aware you're speaking specifically of English language JRPGS, however I thought it worth pointing out.

I doubt I'll attract much of a spunkgargleweewee audience, but frankly I'd rather those people stayed away anyhow.

Not sure what that is, but based on name I'm unsure if I want to know.

If the game was to be 3D I'd consider helping out, but I'm of no use on the sprite front.

[SirNiko]

Lots of good stuff in this thread.

I think the biggest thing I'd be worried about is pulling a Final Fantasy 8 and changing a bunch of stuff for the sake of changing it and wind up with something that isn't particularly fun to play when you're done. If the goal is to focus the player's attention on the subverted mechanics, you're probably better off with a simple or humorous plot that doesn't distract from the mechanical changes.

It'd be useful to point out some JRPGs have addressed common complaints about JRPG tropes, like how Earthbound deals with easy enemies by making them flee from you, or Persona 4 which made elemental weaknesses factor much more thoughtfully into combat (both for you and the enemy) or Final Fantasy 10, which used short-term sure-fire status effects to make status attacks actually useful.

If I were going to pick one thing to try and fix, though, I'd go for the flat difficulty curves. Making a mostly traditional JRPG where the game doesn't get really easy in the second half of the plot would be a great accomplishment.

[Schilcote]

I doubt I'll attract much of a spunkgargleweewee audience, but frankly I'd rather those people stayed away anyhow.

Not sure what that is, but based on name I'm unsure if I want to know.

It's Yahtzee Croshaw's term for generic low-effort first-person shooters.

I think the biggest thing I'd be worried about is pulling a Final Fantasy 8 and changing a bunch of stuff for the sake of changing it and wind up with something that isn't particularly fun to play when you're done. If the goal is to focus the player's attention on the subverted mechanics, you're probably better off with a simple or humorous plot that doesn't distract from the mechanical changes.

The game is intended to be mostly a story vehicle, so the latter isn't an option.

I'm not going to change things solely for the sake of changing them, of course. Or at least I won't be changing things if there's a decent reason for them being that way. I'm just trying to avoid the mechanical repetitiveness of most JRPGs, and avoid the "these popular games did it, so we'll do it too, regardless of why they did it" methodology that you see so often.

Earthbound also had the "auto fight" button. If you feel the need to include a means by which the player can opt out of playing a major part the game, you should probably consider rethinking that part entirely.

[baconman]

I'm with the whole FF6/CT/SMRPG crowd; but then I notice, games like those are the exception to the JRPG pool, not the definers thereof. I've seen fighting games go off in divisive directions, and there were ones I liked way more than others; though said 'others' have remained far more popular in spite of my opinion.

So what is it people SHOULD expect in a JRPG? Maybe a lot of those looking into JRPGs *want* the spunkgargleweewee experience, and go in expecting that, whether or not I would.

Personally, I'll tell you what seperates the meat from the bones to me:

1. A 'good plot' uses characters and scenarios to make you question things in life. Plot depth = philosophical depth. Or sometimes comedic depth. These may have each featured a 'save the bitch' chapter in them, but never was that the main focus of any of the really groundbreaking games.

2. A battle system that's fun. And for the sake of such; yes, the battles themselves. FF6's relics brilliantly changed options in battle to keep them fresh and interesting, along with tactical advantage/disadvantages, magical techniques and strategies with some depth to them (like reflecting spells, spells that could target singles or whole groups). CTrig's spacial-relative techniques and team-up techniques; and the fact that battles took place right on the wandering map screen, while leaving the world map travel totally uninterrupted. And SMRPG's interactive elements (timed attacks/defenses, spells that took different kinds of inputs)... South Park: The Stick of Truth uses this to tremendously good effect as well.

3. The game takes the same assets and does different, interesting things with them. Yes, this means like FF minigames - if the minigames are fun, include them. But don't make the future FF mistake and make them disjointed excess - have the said 'minigames' serve to progress the plot, not distract from it!

4. Don't sweat the details. This I picked up from Cthulhu Saves The World and Breath of Death VII. Have healing shit heal, plain as that. All of that specific status-curing crap just sits in inventories taking up space anyhow; they're usually only useful for one area of a game and/or a boss, and that's it. Even 'uberbosses' just demolish your HP outright now, I can't even recall a good 'final boss' (or even a Disc 1 Final Dungeon boss) that utilizes any status effect crap at all; nor do the players ever inflict it upon enemies. If you're gonna make systems like that, use them; and if you're not going to use them, then don't make them.

Also, putting 1ups in JRPGs was the most brilliant thing ever.

5. What does failure imply? In most cases, it's just a Game Over, followed by a trip to your last save scum; give or take 'that one boss encounter you can't win because the story says so.' (Also way overdone.) Why can't victory and defeat be the branching points of a game's plot, rather than taking the left road or the right road, or giving something versus keeping it?

I would hope by now SOME game illustrates this, but I could be wrong; I have yet to hear of one, that's for sure.

[ink.inc]

*Options reduced by obsoletism. I hate how by the end of the game you have hundreds of spells, weapons,items, etc. but only 4 or 5 of them are actually worth a damn anymore. It's as if the more options you are given the less options you actually have. Radiant Historia suffered from that to a degree but it also broke away from it by giving you skills that played into the combat's puzzle-like elements. Your skills were just as useful for how they positioned the enemy as they were for the damage (etc.) they inflicted.

btw this is a good post

[Alder]

I'd recommend a couple of things. Bear in mind that I typically like JRPGs - maybe I'm just the type of gamer this stuff is made for.

First off, you're not trying to trick your players. When looking for optional sidequests or items, abide by the general rule of "It can be hidden or it can be time-limited but it can't be both". Secrets can be a great way to encourage players to explore and engage with your world in an organic way, but this only gets discouraged if a player thinks they'll miss the game's coolest stuff without paying $14.99 for the JRPG Game Deluxe Prima Games Walkthrough^tm Featuring Exclusive Artwork And All The Secrets!

Secondly, don't provide just one route for a task. Give gamers multiple potential tools and let them figure out which ones appeal to them most. This can be anything from adjustable classes a la Final Fantasy V (an uncelebrated jem of old-style Final Fantasy) to open-ended tasks with many potential solutions, each of which presents an equal, yet distinct challenge. People complain about linear games/games with no choice and it's tempting to think they want every game to be a Bethesda RPG where the whole thing is just a playground to be a jerk in, but that's not true - what matters is that people are given tools and is allowed to figure out a way to solve the problem with those tools for themselves.

Thirdly, ignore what the other guys said. Grind has its place for a certain type of gamer. Sometimes it's room to experiment with tactics. Sometimes it's a way to balance the risk of combat with the reward of greater strength should you survive. A lot of the time, it's a way to switch off and enjoy the mundane compulsion of repetitive, satisfying tasks that feel good and fill up a nice bright meter and makes sparkles at the end, which is a VERY big reason many Japanese gamers play at the end of a hard work day, and honestly hold a lot of appeal for me. Either way, if your battle system is fun, there's only so much of a grind the grind will be. If you can figure out a way to make it optional/avoidable but still distinctly advantageous and satisfying, the entire nation of Japan will rise up and make you the new Shogun Of Making JRPGs Relevant Again, and you'll deserve it.

Fourth, abstraction is a good idea. One thing I love about old JRPGs (though I know others dislike it) is the sense that what you're seeing is a simplified version of the thing that's actually going on in your imagination - really this is something that goes back to tabletop RPGs too. This goes for battles, menu management, character - if you can make "abstracted" and "charming" work together, it can allow the player's mind to fill in the blanks in a way that'll be nice and endearing.

By the same note, being too prescriptive can be a bad thing. We see this time and time again with "whiny/angsty characters"; don't expect your audience to have much empathy for your character as a distinct person, especially when it gets in the way of what they want to be doing. A player character is an avatar for us to have a compelling experience before they're a character. I can't think of a single time a player character consistently being an actual person rather than a puppet has gone over well (Hell, one word: Raiden). If they're the person we're controlling we're going to expect them to be as determined to progress as we are, so having characters experiencing conflict, reluctance or anything other than simplistic, straightforward drive to do whatever we want them to do, and maybe whatever shreds of personality don't get in the way of that, will earn you the tag of "whiny" or "emo". Even if in a different medium it would be considered better, more humanising writing, in games it gets in the way of us doing the fun thing. You're not making high art here, you're entertaining maladjusted, socially underdeveloped crybabies who will fling poop all over NeoGAF if you don't just indulge them at all times. I mean, you're fighting an uphill battle anyway - JRPGs are out of fashion right now so people are going to complain regardless. It's better to just give in and deaden your soul now.

Okay, that's my bitterness vented. I mean, not all of it, but at least enough of it for now.

Finally, feel free to ignore all this, as well as anything else said in this thread! We're just a bunch of jerks who don't really know anything and if you feel like a suggestion we've made clashes with the kind of game you'd want to make. This kind of forum typically becomes, for better or worse, an echo chamber for whatever the current "best industry practices" are currently being paraded around as the received wisdom du jour. Make the game you'd want to play, and forget what anyone else has to say.