I'm 46, and got picked on by everyone in High School for liking FF 6 (3 back then) and Chrono Trigger. Still don't know anyone in real life who likes JRPGs, but I know a few people who are really into video games. It's still a very niche genre in the US.
As a Canadian named Brendon who also has a beard and loves JRPG. Happy thanks giving (fake thanksgiving) to everyone. I’m thankful that I rediscovered my passion for JRPGs about a year ago and have been drowning in new releases to play
Take your time, is amazing, final fantasy used to be my favourite franchise, now is trails
22 วันที่ผ่านมา +2
The "community" aspect you talked about really made me greatful. I love the fact that we get channels like yours to talk about what makes this genre so great. I loved watching everyone's different takes on games throughout the year, and the way it made me think about them and my take on these games. Thanks for a great year, and looking forward to the next one!
Love when the trails series get the appreciation it deserves as a vet in rpg’s it provides both story politics and gameplay with fun rpg elements and builds and satisfaction.
Yeah man I agree 100% and ive been so frustrated with some of these guys screaming about how gaming is dying. Its not that long ago we used to regularly miss out on mainline final fantasy and dragon quest games, nintendo didn't even want to bring over xenoblade as recently as the wii, yet we're living in a time where developers are constantly reviving old niche rpgs with remakes or even bringing in new entries to old series. it's clear there is a growing audience here. So when I see doomer takes on the gaming industry I just roll my eyes now. Rpg fans have too much to even reasonably play, like my backlog is sooo f'd right now
Agree with this so much. Also worth adding the rise of emulation, rereleases and fan translations makes experiencing the titles we did miss so much easier.
3 features I wish every JRPG had 1) Auto text advance (most have this now, hate hitting X after every sentence). 2) Feature to constantly sprint. Just click R2 to sprint instead of constantly having to hold R2 to run faster. Give us the option to toggle back and forth. 3) Hyper speed mode like in the newer trails game to make battles faster or travel in big areas faster.
Theres some proper love in this video. Also having only really delved into jrpgs this year. Having found your channel and trails has been *chefs kiss*. On cold steel now. And i just cant wait to keep playing. So excited for the remake of trails sky1 even though i only just finished it in april this year
Trails is such a unique series I’m so glad it is still going, some other jrpgs may have better concepts or stories but the overarching world of Zemuria and attachment to characters just can’t be replicated! Switch is also such a powerhouse for jpgs makes adults with busy life’s a godsend! I mainly play some of the remasters on switch along with recent port titles with decent performance. PS portal is a blessing too to flush out catalogue for games that don’t run well on switch (e.g Ys IX, SMTVV etc) and I find myself playing the latest Falcom/jrpgs on there! Wanted to say I also love the JRPG Pursuit podcast, I religiously wait for new episodes and listen to them right away - keep up the great work!
I agree with most of your points (Final Fantasy just doesn't speak to me but that's a me thing). I just love the Trails, the Yakuza/LaD, the recent Ys and Persona games, etc. I'll add something that I'm grateful, as someone who has every consoles + PC but prefers playing on Xbox is how many JRPG devs have released their games over there too. JRPGs are often on the longer side and long haul games + Quick Resume is just so good I'm crossing my fingers to see that feature emulated by all platforms.
The genre was great in the 90s for sure, but they’re so much more accessible today, so much more playable. It’s great! I’ve kind of fallen off of FF over the years, but I’m glad it’s continued to evolve. And I’m smack in the middle of the Trails games, too. It’s all good!
Now is definitely the best time to be a JRPG fan no question, the access to modern & retro games is incredible. I still think the best era for JRPGs (no remasters included in any of this) is the late 90s. I'm such a huge SRPG fan and SRPG's now is such an underrepresented genre especially compared to then.
I have friends who dabble in RPGs but I mostly have the online friends who gush over RPGs as much as I do. Fun video. I feel like this is apart of the GEMS video collection. 👍
Yea couldn’t get into FFXIV either, I’ve tried a few times and made it up to the start of the first expansion, but it’s just wayyyy too much MMO-Centric and it’s not like it lacks the basis for world building, it’s that the incentives actively push you away from engaging with each region in the world except to visit the local auction house or trade guild lol. Dungeons are MMO dungeons through and through, there’s always someone who knows exactly what to do, and you HAVE to follow that person otherwise everyone else will probably die if you start wandering off the beaten path lol. I was a healer, and I really wanted to find out how to get to the chest in a locked jail cell. But no, that would’ve extended our run by 3 minutes, and mister big bad warrior wanted to run two more specific dungeons in the next hour, just because that’s the “efficient” way veterans use their time and earn enough to buy a house on a server that is riddled with artificial scarcity-like Square, c’mon, give everyone a free house for paying a subscription and reaching level 20 or something. We don’t need to let capitalism permeate every social aspect of our lives, but MMOs literally do that-they’re all just social experiments conducted virtually where a few overachieving early adopters eventually dictate how the game should be played, the financial value of each category of gear, and how to distribute loot, or a group’s “earnings”… I don’t want to grind dungeons to own a house with a “legendary”-crafted fence from some famous Lalafell artisan who sells each yard for 5,000,000 Gil. I don’t own a Tesla irl, so why would I want to play a “social” game that’s filled with people obsessed with showing off every milestone achieved while climbing an artificial socioeconomic ladder that looks a hell of a lot like the one I see at work every Monday morning when I see the same three extra-shiny Model Ys parked by the front entrance that clearly only get driven on Mondays. They spend more on water and cleaning products for their car washes than they save on gas for switching to an EV. I find that MMOs are hard to get engaged with because it’s impossible not to get distracted by that social aspect of the game, and just focus on the experience you’d want from a single player game because everyone will constantly tell you that “side quests are a waste of time, the end game is where the good stuff is.” But I don’t want to reach end game content just to get the good stuff, by then all of the potential value in the game is gone because I just ran dungeon after dungeon, and spent hours watching well-written story dialogue play itself out in between runs-that’s pretty much it. The main story is so long now too, that to engage with side content would require investing at least a thousand-hours that everyone will remind you would have been better spent running end game dungeons and raids. By the 40-hour mark, I want none of that. Just like by Friday afternoon, I’m completely uninterested in the Saturday/Sunday backyard grilling parties those 3 Tesla owners have every other week-I just spent the whole week listening to them brag about their children’s “accomplishments” in the private sports clubs they paid way too much money to enroll them in.
Thanks Branden! I'm only active in YT comments because it gives me a place to channel my enthusiasm for RPGs. I agree, things are better than ever as a JRPG fan; the market is so much richer and deeper than it was 30 years ago. I'll happily take a high-budget title at least quarterly, with dozens of smaller efforts coming out in that time. It means I always have something to play. Something to think about. Something to learn from. And if I encounter something I don't love, I can just, ya know, *MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE* instead of coming online to cry about how AAA games are too woke (meaning there are too many brown people, non-submissive women, and gays) now. I'm so tired of that grift...
I agree for the most part that games now are better than ever. It's also easier to see / sample / keep up with games with platforms like this. Trails is a big part of that for me as well. I never saw another series catching up to DQ in my fandom, but they're right there. Plus, many of the best classic JRPGs like DQ3 and Suikoden II that us olds have nostalgia for are being remade or re-released even better than before. Playing DQ3 now and seeing what it looks like has given me so many feels. Oddly enough, the one thing that I feel has not improved is the first series you mentioned, Final Fantasy. Now to be fair, I was always a DQ guy over FF. Sure there was 4, 6, and 7, but as good as those games were I still wasn't into them as much as most were. And as JRPG fan, it's hard to feel like FF isn't chasing the 'new hotness' type of game rather than sticking to their roots.
To me, I believe this is the best however I wish I had the time that I did back when I was a kid for all these games. So many experiences to share or get to the experienced. However, I cannot argue with the quality that's out there today.
The one thing that’s going to make me pick the 90’s over today is that games were cheaper and faster to make back then, so the teams making Final Fantasy for example could learn, grow, and iterate quickly. To get FFIV through FFVIII in a single decade was insane. Otherwise yeah, I agree!
Listen, I have been gaming since the mid 80s and just now I feel that games are on that level artistically that they were meant to be. That everything that came before was just birthing pains.
Yeah, before the genre was limited by technical issues. But now that we have tech that can realize pretty much ALL concept art? The sky's the limit, and we've seen the genre fully take advantage of this.
Wow, Paladin's Quest. now THERE's a game I haven't thought of in a good couple decades. I agree. Except for the PS2 era, I think this is the best time to be an RPG fan. Might even be the BEST time, because so many of the great ones on the PS1 and PS2 are playable or even being remade. Except the Xenosaga and Xenogears games, which is one abomination that MUST be set right. We live in a time of abundance. Were it that I wasn't now in my fourties, with a family, full time job, and a pentiont for Voice acting and music composing, I'd be in JRPG heaven. Unfortunately you can't put life on pause. So while I DO still have time to play them, I still have to be very choosey. And, sadly, sometimes I make the wrong choice. But then sometimes a game like Tales of Berseria, Arise or Scarlet Nexus comes along and I end up playing them more than once.
You're right but they've become very niche. It's the best time to enjoy the games themselves but a lonely hobby. My nephew didn't meet not even one person in his whole high school/college days that played jrpgs except from a pokemon game here and there.
I agree, and I'll preface this next bit with being autistic, so sorry if this comes off as anything other than just constructive feedback, as that's all it's meant to be. The following is a bit funny, since you use your mic correctly in the second podcast clip at 14:44 - 14:51 (Abdallah seems to have it angled correctly in the first clip so the top is pointing at his mouth, though Emily's isn't pointed at her mouth in either clip [all three of those are end-address {front-address} mics, and not side-address mics]). TL;DR (though I recommend reading): speak into the top of that specific mic (not all mics are the same [documentation tells how to use]) and lose the pop filter, since it's not meant for that mic anyway and won't do anything. The Rode PodMic you're using is an end-address (sometimes called front-address) dynamic microphone, which means that the mic capsule is at the end (the top). You talk into the circular grill opposite of the XLR cable, otherwise it won't sound how it's supposed to, and it'll keep rejecting sound at the sides (it doesn't get fully muted, but it just means that it'll be quieter anywhere but the front where it's expecting to pickup sound). Also, that pop filter is meant for side-address (usually condenser) mics like an at2020, at2035, rode nt1, etc. where you are supposed to talk into the side (usually the correct side on side-address mics has a branding logo or label). Generally, the manual will tell you. Depending on the rest of your audio chain, you may or may not want to adjust gain to compensate for the louder sound you'll have when using it correctly. Hope this helps. I understand the reason for the side grilling, but it tends to confuse the average person into talking into the wrong side.
if you're arguing that the sheer supply in jrpgs has reached the point where there's a game for everyone, sure. But there's an reason games like ff7 are being remade, because it was one of the most impactfull games at that time and actually had an ending after beating the game. Same for persona 3 reload this year, the game its based on saved atlus from going bankrupt. SMTVV is an switch remaster, but the remake and remaster saga aside. I think some JRPG today get away with nonsense that would bankrupt the companies in the past like yakuza infinite wealth or persona 3 reload 35 bucks DLC, one is for NG+ an core feature the other is aigis dlc which isnt available in the aigis edition..... One of the few upsides is due to the supply in JRPG the competition between these's companies is more fierce than ever.
I feel like the abundance of quality we have to choose from right now also has a dark side. Example: I'm pretty confident FF 16 lost money for Square. It had 3 million sales on the PS 5, but the PC launch has utterly flopped, with fewer than 300k sales. Exclusivity killed this game, but the time it came out on PC, people had moved on. The reason why I think trails preserves better is because trails is a wholly unique experience, it doesn't appeal to most people, but that also eliminates competition. FF 16 is out there competing with the Yakuza franchise, with Gran Blue Fantasy, with Atlus releases, heck, FF 16 is even competing with it's far more interesting looking remake of it's own 7th game. We live in a world where the latest FF mainline entry probably didn't crack 4 million total sales and was probably a massive money loser for Square. That's not a message about the latest mainline FF release, rather, it's a message about how strong the genre is overall. Even a mainline FF release, one of the biggest of the big events, managed to get lost in the shuffle.
Ok...or they had the sterile open world that doesn't make sense..or the combat...or the way the narrative was pieced out..between anime..movie....game...DLC...
Definitely agree we are in an amazing era of RPGs. If anything my criticism is that there are too many great games and not enough time to play them. I'm so happy developers have moved away from the idea that Western audiences don't like JRPGs. Also, happy to hear you shout out the true Thanksgiving...Canadian Thanksgiving 😉
No joke, JRPGs are better than they've ever been. As you said, I absolutely HATED the fact that it was a massive crapshoot if we were ever going to get X game, and if we did, how long would it take to come out. And then the sometimes awful translations. Now we have an embarrassment of riches, JRPGs of all types, oodles of Quality of Life, significantly better writing, more creativity in settings and plots, drastically better music (this is something that cannot be overstated), just... wow.
Man JRPGs are my favorite genre...i was hooked from the moment i played 7...then went seeking them out on snes to play all the o es i missed... Breath of fire 1 and 2 Bahamuts lagoon Taleas of phantasia FF6 Secret of mana1 and 2 Chrono trigger Super mario RPG Etc.. One criticism i have of alot of JRPGs today is theyre trying to appeal to the west ...and losing alot of what makes them unique
I want to play Trails, but at this point it seems so huge as to be unapproachable. I kinda wish they would release collections for each series and make it seem a little more manageable.
When the remake of Sky FC comes out next year just jump in! As a stand alone game it was fantastic and by the time you're done you'll be itching to play more.
I am not a fan of Final Fantasy - I have tried many time but since III and IV, have not finished any though I've started quite a few. They just really don't grab me and i really disliked 15 and didn't even try 16. Trails - I've tried a couple times and so far it hasn't grabbed me though I will be going back to try again. For me the games I liked were most of the Tales games with the exception of Arise which just didn't feel like like a Tales game. In all honesty, I just haven't gotten into any JRPGs recently and feel pretty alienated by all the 'Fromsoft' so called RPGs that just want to make you feel like you are slamming your head in a car door over and over. Dragon Quest and Tales are my favorite series. The only game I've played recently that really grabbed me is Echoes of Wisdom which really isn't even an RPG. All that said, I do think this is still a good time for RPGs and maybe it's just me lacking the focus to stick with games recently.
Im glad you like FF, but im more disappointed and let down by FF than anything else...glad you enjoy it though...to an almost religious degree, cant ask for more than that out of an experience. I dont really care that much about the console experience, my switch pretty much collects dust and my steam deck is a once a month adventure. What I am grateful for: The trails translations...the best game series on recent times. There were long string connected games made in the 90's, you just didnt play them and were not interested in them...but they existed. Trails is actually a throwback to that thinking, and falcom (like square and enix) were influenced by western rpg's and loved them. Eveything Atlus has done: persona 3 reload is great, and unlike Falcom...but still great...keep their iterations unrelated and playable on their own. Metaphor and SMT vengeance have been great, and they are dedicated to making original (mostly) games. There are too many remakes and redos (even though I like some, like reload) and the indie scene is picking up the slack. "Retro" is still strong and there are still developers that believe a game can be artistically beautiful without having to make it as "FF" as possible, instead concentrating on content and choices. Octopath Traveler II and chained echoes come to mind. Jrpgs have mostly stayed out of the preaching market and tried to be influential through their narrative, rather than beating you up for breathing air wrong, which a lot of the West is obsessed with now.
I think gaming is at it's best right now in spite of the nostalgic morons who want to paint their narrative that it's bad. They just seem like people who want to complain more so than actually play games since they know their lives as an adult is just miserable but don't want to say it out loud.
I think FF died with 11, I was okay with MMORPGs back then but it was not one of them. I actually like 15 better than 12 or 13 & maybe 8. FF7Rs: I am not a fan of they seem to be ruining the nostalgia for me. My favorite RPG of all time is FF6 and do not see it changing for quite some time. I am not Trails fan and most likely never will be. Same with Persona, but will most likely always love SMT. I will say I have started liking Y's with 8 & 9, due to I think they finally got the combat decent enough to like. Talking about history and waiting. The first thing I saw of FF7 was in a magazine & if it had just been that magazine I most likely would not have picked up the game. There was another game in that magazine though that I 100% wanted and thought it looked 100% better than FF7 graphically & everything else, which was Arc the Lad. Sadly it took a few more years for AtL collection to come out and then after 4 the series went downhill hard, but so has FF to me so meh.
Have to wholeheartedly disagree... JRPGs have better quality of life function..and are smoother but they're not better.. With the influx of full 3D environment rendering..JRPGs..look better and are more expansive...but have less content... For me the Golden age of JRPGs was the ps1 to ps2 age... For simple reasons..the limitations on graphal fidelity mades developers had to focus on other things.. FF7 is the best example i can think of..especially because it had a modern remake.. FF7 had an entire world packed into 1 game ..3 full disks of content.. A globe trotting story..that sees you go From a cyberpunk mega city To caves..grasslands,boats,countryside,mountains,desert wilderness,canyans,jungles,forests, snowfields...submarines...space...and so much more.. This is something you cannot do to the same extent...in a way modern graphics and 3D rendering has no limited JRPGs.. FF7 remake had to split the game up into 3 parts... The reality is also making a 5 year game with a budget of 200 million means the game cannot be very creative it has to be safe with its systems.. Better production values.. Better quality of life does not make a better game.. I'm playing metaphor refantazio right now and I'm over 100 hours in and the game is good..but not amazing..
I disagree, now don’t me get wrong there are some tremendous JRPGs out now but I do not think they are better than ever. The amount of filler in JRPGs today literally drives me insane, literally I have been thinking about this for a long time now I don’t ever remember such useless content in games until modern gaming the most not rewarding sh8t ever. companies are also taking way less risks with creating unique games there were some wild games back in the day and sometimes they failed or just did ok but the companies still took those risks this is also the same with movies. Companies today take way less risks and I think it hurts the genre and all genres really. With all that said though there have been some amazing JRPGs. But with that said all the remakes that have released and the old games are still available to play so it’s a win regardless.
No they aren’t 😅 all of them have voice acting which ch has resulted in a loss of charm. All this open world garbage like Tales of Arise full of bloated fetch quests. Take me back to the days of Shadow Hearts, Suikoden 3, dark cloud 2, FFX, etc any day of the week !
How are they bettwr when its nothing but remakes and remasters. Nothing new has been done in years. You have lukewarm releases like xiv and tales of arise. Im 40 and my first nes games besides mario and zelda were jrpgs. This whole 8dea is false. Innovation and creativity is dying. Falcom is one of the few i still respect(and no not atlus metaphor was p5 with current day politics). Whats worse is they water down characters in the name of censorship and DEI. I do not play my trails games by NISA they destroy them. I could write a NOVEL of all the changes cold steel and kuro made from NISA. JRPGs thrived in the ps1 and ps2 era. Theyre were some bangers here and there in the ps4 era. Now only switch and a select few pockets of companies make anything new. Also xenosaga is better than xenoblade, people play for the narrayive and im sorry but sagas was way better. Gaming Industry must crash. Too many normies. Gaming was a passion in the 90s, i miss getting picked on at school for playing FF7 because only" dorks" played that stuff. Now everyone must be into it, it must be for everyone( DEI woke SBI) and artistic and developmental decisions are made for $$$ soley not for vision. JRPGS are worse, get out of your echo chamber
What I mainly see in this comment, I’m afraid, is anger and resentment from another presumably male and middle-aged gamer who supposes to live outside of “ideology” himself, and whose increasingly more conservative politics (inspired by the echo chamber of the TH-cam gaming community revolving around people like Asmon) is unfortunately making him incapable of enjoying new things. I personally have noticed that growing up makes me more conservative in some areas, but surely this paranoid fear of “woke” and “DEI” has to stop at some point. There are valid and nuanced criticisms to be made about “woke” and “DEI”, but this is getting ridiculous, and I fear for the sake of these men.
I’m 50 and I still have no one to talk about games with irl.
I'm 49 buddy and that is what we are here for! :)
I’m mid-forties and practically the only one in my large network at all into games like JRPGs. 😅
Right there with you, mate. Glad we at least have this community. 😅
I'm 46, and got picked on by everyone in High School for liking FF 6 (3 back then) and Chrono Trigger. Still don't know anyone in real life who likes JRPGs, but I know a few people who are really into video games. It's still a very niche genre in the US.
Thank you everyone for the warm hug
As a Canadian named Brendon who also has a beard and loves JRPG. Happy thanks giving (fake thanksgiving) to everyone. I’m thankful that I rediscovered my passion for JRPGs about a year ago and have been drowning in new releases to play
I’m going to play my first trails game next year and your channel is at least 27% of the reason why.
Take your time, is amazing, final fantasy used to be my favourite franchise, now is trails
The "community" aspect you talked about really made me greatful. I love the fact that we get channels like yours to talk about what makes this genre so great. I loved watching everyone's different takes on games throughout the year, and the way it made me think about them and my take on these games. Thanks for a great year, and looking forward to the next one!
FF7 Rebirth was one of the best Gaming expierence in my life
That’s crazy. Can’t stand the FF 7 remakes
Love when the trails series get the appreciation it deserves as a vet in rpg’s it provides both story politics and gameplay with fun rpg elements and builds and satisfaction.
You could say from this decade, we've reached a new Golden Age of JRPGs now! Here's to more JRPG goodness for the next couple of years!
Just like with fighting games it's become undeniable that we're deep in a Golden Age of JRPGs, easily exceeding the beautiful era back in the 90s.
Yeah man I agree 100% and ive been so frustrated with some of these guys screaming about how gaming is dying. Its not that long ago we used to regularly miss out on mainline final fantasy and dragon quest games, nintendo didn't even want to bring over xenoblade as recently as the wii, yet we're living in a time where developers are constantly reviving old niche rpgs with remakes or even bringing in new entries to old series. it's clear there is a growing audience here. So when I see doomer takes on the gaming industry I just roll my eyes now. Rpg fans have too much to even reasonably play, like my backlog is sooo f'd right now
God, Rebirth really is that good
The PS Portal has been a godsend for me as a new dad. No way i'd be able to sit down and play Metaphor right now.
Agree with this so much. Also worth adding the rise of emulation, rereleases and fan translations makes experiencing the titles we did miss so much easier.
Yup, emulation becoming so advanced we can have dozens of consoles worth of games in a small handheld = the stuff of dreams.
3 features I wish every JRPG had 1) Auto text advance (most have this now, hate hitting X after every sentence). 2) Feature to constantly sprint. Just click R2 to sprint instead of constantly having to hold R2 to run faster. Give us the option to toggle back and forth. 3) Hyper speed mode like in the newer trails game to make battles faster or travel in big areas faster.
Theres some proper love in this video. Also having only really delved into jrpgs this year. Having found your channel and trails has been *chefs kiss*. On cold steel now. And i just cant wait to keep playing. So excited for the remake of trails sky1 even though i only just finished it in april this year
Trails is such a unique series I’m so glad it is still going, some other jrpgs may have better concepts or stories but the overarching world of Zemuria and attachment to characters just can’t be replicated! Switch is also such a powerhouse for jpgs makes adults with busy life’s a godsend! I mainly play some of the remasters on switch along with recent port titles with decent performance. PS portal is a blessing too to flush out catalogue for games that don’t run well on switch (e.g Ys IX, SMTVV etc) and I find myself playing the latest Falcom/jrpgs on there!
Wanted to say I also love the JRPG Pursuit podcast, I religiously wait for new episodes and listen to them right away - keep up the great work!
I agree with most of your points (Final Fantasy just doesn't speak to me but that's a me thing). I just love the Trails, the Yakuza/LaD, the recent Ys and Persona games, etc.
I'll add something that I'm grateful, as someone who has every consoles + PC but prefers playing on Xbox is how many JRPG devs have released their games over there too.
JRPGs are often on the longer side and long haul games + Quick Resume is just so good I'm crossing my fingers to see that feature emulated by all platforms.
The genre was great in the 90s for sure, but they’re so much more accessible today, so much more playable. It’s great! I’ve kind of fallen off of FF over the years, but I’m glad it’s continued to evolve. And I’m smack in the middle of the Trails games, too. It’s all good!
Now is definitely the best time to be a JRPG fan no question, the access to modern & retro games is incredible. I still think the best era for JRPGs (no remasters included in any of this) is the late 90s. I'm such a huge SRPG fan and SRPG's now is such an underrepresented genre especially compared to then.
It's really incredible how many Falcom games we got in the West, especially in the past ~10 years.
I have friends who dabble in RPGs but I mostly have the online friends who gush over RPGs as much as I do.
Fun video. I feel like this is apart of the GEMS video collection. 👍
Yea couldn’t get into FFXIV either, I’ve tried a few times and made it up to the start of the first expansion, but it’s just wayyyy too much MMO-Centric and it’s not like it lacks the basis for world building, it’s that the incentives actively push you away from engaging with each region in the world except to visit the local auction house or trade guild lol.
Dungeons are MMO dungeons through and through, there’s always someone who knows exactly what to do, and you HAVE to follow that person otherwise everyone else will probably die if you start wandering off the beaten path lol. I was a healer, and I really wanted to find out how to get to the chest in a locked jail cell. But no, that would’ve extended our run by 3 minutes, and mister big bad warrior wanted to run two more specific dungeons in the next hour, just because that’s the “efficient” way veterans use their time and earn enough to buy a house on a server that is riddled with artificial scarcity-like Square, c’mon, give everyone a free house for paying a subscription and reaching level 20 or something.
We don’t need to let capitalism permeate every social aspect of our lives, but MMOs literally do that-they’re all just social experiments conducted virtually where a few overachieving early adopters eventually dictate how the game should be played, the financial value of each category of gear, and how to distribute loot, or a group’s “earnings”…
I don’t want to grind dungeons to own a house with a “legendary”-crafted fence from some famous Lalafell artisan who sells each yard for 5,000,000 Gil. I don’t own a Tesla irl, so why would I want to play a “social” game that’s filled with people obsessed with showing off every milestone achieved while climbing an artificial socioeconomic ladder that looks a hell of a lot like the one I see at work every Monday morning when I see the same three extra-shiny Model Ys parked by the front entrance that clearly only get driven on Mondays.
They spend more on water and cleaning products for their car washes than they save on gas for switching to an EV. I find that MMOs are hard to get engaged with because it’s impossible not to get distracted by that social aspect of the game, and just focus on the experience you’d want from a single player game because everyone will constantly tell you that “side quests are a waste of time, the end game is where the good stuff is.”
But I don’t want to reach end game content just to get the good stuff, by then all of the potential value in the game is gone because I just ran dungeon after dungeon, and spent hours watching well-written story dialogue play itself out in between runs-that’s pretty much it. The main story is so long now too, that to engage with side content would require investing at least a thousand-hours that everyone will remind you would have been better spent running end game dungeons and raids. By the 40-hour mark, I want none of that.
Just like by Friday afternoon, I’m completely uninterested in the Saturday/Sunday backyard grilling parties those 3 Tesla owners have every other week-I just spent the whole week listening to them brag about their children’s “accomplishments” in the private sports clubs they paid way too much money to enroll them in.
Thanks Branden!
I'm only active in YT comments because it gives me a place to channel my enthusiasm for RPGs. I agree, things are better than ever as a JRPG fan; the market is so much richer and deeper than it was 30 years ago.
I'll happily take a high-budget title at least quarterly, with dozens of smaller efforts coming out in that time. It means I always have something to play. Something to think about. Something to learn from.
And if I encounter something I don't love, I can just, ya know, *MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE* instead of coming online to cry about how AAA games are too woke (meaning there are too many brown people, non-submissive women, and gays) now. I'm so tired of that grift...
Just found your channel, appreciate your perspective. Thank you!
JRPGs are 100% the best right now, no doubt about it!
I agree for the most part that games now are better than ever. It's also easier to see / sample / keep up with games with platforms like this.
Trails is a big part of that for me as well. I never saw another series catching up to DQ in my fandom, but they're right there. Plus, many of the best classic JRPGs like DQ3 and Suikoden II that us olds have nostalgia for are being remade or re-released even better than before. Playing DQ3 now and seeing what it looks like has given me so many feels.
Oddly enough, the one thing that I feel has not improved is the first series you mentioned, Final Fantasy. Now to be fair, I was always a DQ guy over FF. Sure there was 4, 6, and 7, but as good as those games were I still wasn't into them as much as most were. And as JRPG fan, it's hard to feel like FF isn't chasing the 'new hotness' type of game rather than sticking to their roots.
To me, I believe this is the best however I wish I had the time that I did back when I was a kid for all these games. So many experiences to share or get to the experienced. However, I cannot argue with the quality that's out there today.
The one thing that’s going to make me pick the 90’s over today is that games were cheaper and faster to make back then, so the teams making Final Fantasy for example could learn, grow, and iterate quickly. To get FFIV through FFVIII in a single decade was insane. Otherwise yeah, I agree!
Listen, I have been gaming since the mid 80s and just now I feel that games are on that level artistically that they were meant to be. That everything that came before was just birthing pains.
Yeah, before the genre was limited by technical issues. But now that we have tech that can realize pretty much ALL concept art? The sky's the limit, and we've seen the genre fully take advantage of this.
I love my PS Portal. Even though it doesn’t work (for me) outside the house much, it’s still nice to play anywhere in the house.
I agree that we have a ton of great jrpgs nowadays! I just wish some of them went back to good ole pre-rendered backgrounds and FMVs.
Yeah jrpgs are def better nowadays because i love how accessibility options are so prevalent nowadays
The fact I got a tactics ogre remaster and final fantasy tactics is on its way is crazy
Wow, Paladin's Quest. now THERE's a game I haven't thought of in a good couple decades.
I agree. Except for the PS2 era, I think this is the best time to be an RPG fan. Might even be the BEST time, because so many of the great ones on the PS1 and PS2 are playable or even being remade. Except the Xenosaga and Xenogears games, which is one abomination that MUST be set right. We live in a time of abundance. Were it that I wasn't now in my fourties, with a family, full time job, and a pentiont for Voice acting and music composing, I'd be in JRPG heaven. Unfortunately you can't put life on pause. So while I DO still have time to play them, I still have to be very choosey. And, sadly, sometimes I make the wrong choice. But then sometimes a game like Tales of Berseria, Arise or Scarlet Nexus comes along and I end up playing them more than once.
You're right but they've become very niche. It's the best time to enjoy the games themselves but a lonely hobby. My nephew didn't meet not even one person in his whole high school/college days that played jrpgs except from a pokemon game here and there.
Glad you mentioned the steam deck…. I can delete my paragraph now….
I agree, and I'll preface this next bit with being autistic, so sorry if this comes off as anything other than just constructive feedback, as that's all it's meant to be.
The following is a bit funny, since you use your mic correctly in the second podcast clip at 14:44 - 14:51 (Abdallah seems to have it angled correctly in the first clip so the top is pointing at his mouth, though Emily's isn't pointed at her mouth in either clip [all three of those are end-address {front-address} mics, and not side-address mics]).
TL;DR (though I recommend reading): speak into the top of that specific mic (not all mics are the same [documentation tells how to use]) and lose the pop filter, since it's not meant for that mic anyway and won't do anything.
The Rode PodMic you're using is an end-address (sometimes called front-address) dynamic microphone, which means that the mic capsule is at the end (the top). You talk into the circular grill opposite of the XLR cable, otherwise it won't sound how it's supposed to, and it'll keep rejecting sound at the sides (it doesn't get fully muted, but it just means that it'll be quieter anywhere but the front where it's expecting to pickup sound). Also, that pop filter is meant for side-address (usually condenser) mics like an at2020, at2035, rode nt1, etc. where you are supposed to talk into the side (usually the correct side on side-address mics has a branding logo or label). Generally, the manual will tell you. Depending on the rest of your audio chain, you may or may not want to adjust gain to compensate for the louder sound you'll have when using it correctly. Hope this helps. I understand the reason for the side grilling, but it tends to confuse the average person into talking into the wrong side.
if you're arguing that the sheer supply in jrpgs has reached the point where there's a game for everyone, sure. But there's an reason games like ff7 are being remade, because it was one of the most impactfull games at that time and actually had an ending after beating the game. Same for persona 3 reload this year, the game its based on saved atlus from going bankrupt. SMTVV is an switch remaster, but the remake and remaster saga aside. I think some JRPG today get away with nonsense that would bankrupt the companies in the past like yakuza infinite wealth or persona 3 reload 35 bucks DLC, one is for NG+ an core feature the other is aigis dlc which isnt available in the aigis edition..... One of the few upsides is due to the supply in JRPG the competition between these's companies is more fierce than ever.
I feel like the abundance of quality we have to choose from right now also has a dark side. Example: I'm pretty confident FF 16 lost money for Square. It had 3 million sales on the PS 5, but the PC launch has utterly flopped, with fewer than 300k sales. Exclusivity killed this game, but the time it came out on PC, people had moved on. The reason why I think trails preserves better is because trails is a wholly unique experience, it doesn't appeal to most people, but that also eliminates competition. FF 16 is out there competing with the Yakuza franchise, with Gran Blue Fantasy, with Atlus releases, heck, FF 16 is even competing with it's far more interesting looking remake of it's own 7th game. We live in a world where the latest FF mainline entry probably didn't crack 4 million total sales and was probably a massive money loser for Square. That's not a message about the latest mainline FF release, rather, it's a message about how strong the genre is overall. Even a mainline FF release, one of the biggest of the big events, managed to get lost in the shuffle.
FF15 haters actually hate friendship.
Ok...or they had the sterile open world that doesn't make sense..or the combat...or the way the narrative was pieced out..between anime..movie....game...DLC...
@86lanzo this 💯
...or they are over 12 years old.
Definitely agree we are in an amazing era of RPGs. If anything my criticism is that there are too many great games and not enough time to play them. I'm so happy developers have moved away from the idea that Western audiences don't like JRPGs. Also, happy to hear you shout out the true Thanksgiving...Canadian Thanksgiving 😉
No joke, JRPGs are better than they've ever been. As you said, I absolutely HATED the fact that it was a massive crapshoot if we were ever going to get X game, and if we did, how long would it take to come out. And then the sometimes awful translations.
Now we have an embarrassment of riches, JRPGs of all types, oodles of Quality of Life, significantly better writing, more creativity in settings and plots, drastically better music (this is something that cannot be overstated), just... wow.
Man JRPGs are my favorite genre...i was hooked from the moment i played 7...then went seeking them out on snes to play all the o es i missed...
Breath of fire 1 and 2
Bahamuts lagoon
Taleas of phantasia
FF6
Secret of mana1 and 2
Chrono trigger
Super mario RPG
Etc..
One criticism i have of alot of JRPGs today is theyre trying to appeal to the west ...and losing alot of what makes them unique
I think they are equally as good and not better or worse.
I want to play Trails, but at this point it seems so huge as to be unapproachable. I kinda wish they would release collections for each series and make it seem a little more manageable.
When the remake of Sky FC comes out next year just jump in! As a stand alone game it was fantastic and by the time you're done you'll be itching to play more.
I am not a fan of Final Fantasy - I have tried many time but since III and IV, have not finished any though I've started quite a few. They just really don't grab me and i really disliked 15 and didn't even try 16. Trails - I've tried a couple times and so far it hasn't grabbed me though I will be going back to try again. For me the games I liked were most of the Tales games with the exception of Arise which just didn't feel like like a Tales game. In all honesty, I just haven't gotten into any JRPGs recently and feel pretty alienated by all the 'Fromsoft' so called RPGs that just want to make you feel like you are slamming your head in a car door over and over. Dragon Quest and Tales are my favorite series. The only game I've played recently that really grabbed me is Echoes of Wisdom which really isn't even an RPG. All that said, I do think this is still a good time for RPGs and maybe it's just me lacking the focus to stick with games recently.
Im glad you like FF, but im more disappointed and let down by FF than anything else...glad you enjoy it though...to an almost religious degree, cant ask for more than that out of an experience.
I dont really care that much about the console experience, my switch pretty much collects dust and my steam deck is a once a month adventure.
What I am grateful for:
The trails translations...the best game series on recent times. There were long string connected games made in the 90's, you just didnt play them and were not interested in them...but they existed. Trails is actually a throwback to that thinking, and falcom (like square and enix) were influenced by western rpg's and loved them.
Eveything Atlus has done: persona 3 reload is great, and unlike Falcom...but still great...keep their iterations unrelated and playable on their own. Metaphor and SMT vengeance have been great, and they are dedicated to making original (mostly) games.
There are too many remakes and redos (even though I like some, like reload) and the indie scene is picking up the slack.
"Retro" is still strong and there are still developers that believe a game can be artistically beautiful without having to make it as "FF" as possible, instead concentrating on content and choices. Octopath Traveler II and chained echoes come to mind.
Jrpgs have mostly stayed out of the preaching market and tried to be influential through their narrative, rather than beating you up for breathing air wrong, which a lot of the West is obsessed with now.
I think gaming is at it's best right now in spite of the nostalgic morons who want to paint their narrative that it's bad. They just seem like people who want to complain more so than actually play games since they know their lives as an adult is just miserable but don't want to say it out loud.
I think FF died with 11, I was okay with MMORPGs back then but it was not one of them. I actually like 15 better than 12 or 13 & maybe 8. FF7Rs: I am not a fan of they seem to be ruining the nostalgia for me. My favorite RPG of all time is FF6 and do not see it changing for quite some time.
I am not Trails fan and most likely never will be. Same with Persona, but will most likely always love SMT.
I will say I have started liking Y's with 8 & 9, due to I think they finally got the combat decent enough to like.
Talking about history and waiting. The first thing I saw of FF7 was in a magazine & if it had just been that magazine I most likely would not have picked up the game. There was another game in that magazine though that I 100% wanted and thought it looked 100% better than FF7 graphically & everything else, which was Arc the Lad. Sadly it took a few more years for AtL collection to come out and then after 4 the series went downhill hard, but so has FF to me so meh.
Agreed
This felt especially wholesome and a little needed for my soul, thanks Brandon! Thankful for this channel and for the podcast every week!
😊
Have to wholeheartedly disagree...
JRPGs have better quality of life function..and are smoother but they're not better..
With the influx of full 3D environment rendering..JRPGs..look better and are more expansive...but have less content...
For me the Golden age of JRPGs was the ps1 to ps2 age...
For simple reasons..the limitations on graphal fidelity mades developers had to focus on other things..
FF7 is the best example i can think of..especially because it had a modern remake..
FF7 had an entire world packed into 1 game ..3 full disks of content..
A globe trotting story..that sees you go
From a cyberpunk mega city
To caves..grasslands,boats,countryside,mountains,desert wilderness,canyans,jungles,forests, snowfields...submarines...space...and so much more..
This is something you cannot do to the same extent...in a way modern graphics and 3D rendering has no limited JRPGs..
FF7 remake had to split the game up into 3 parts...
The reality is also making a 5 year game with a budget of 200 million means the game cannot be very creative it has to be safe with its systems..
Better production values..
Better quality of life does not make a better game..
I'm playing metaphor refantazio right now and I'm over 100 hours in and the game is good..but not amazing..
Metaphor has rekindled my love. Haven’t felt this way about a jrpg since FFVII. Western devs motives in recent games has me looking elsewhere
I disagree, now don’t me get wrong there are some tremendous JRPGs out now but I do not think they are better than ever. The amount of filler in JRPGs today literally drives me insane, literally I have been thinking about this for a long time now I don’t ever remember such useless content in games until modern gaming the most not rewarding sh8t ever. companies are also taking way less risks with creating unique games there were some wild games back in the day and sometimes they failed or just did ok but the companies still took those risks this is also the same with movies. Companies today take way less risks and I think it hurts the genre and all genres really. With all that said though there have been some amazing JRPGs. But with that said all the remakes that have released and the old games are still available to play so it’s a win regardless.
No they aren’t 😅 all of them have voice acting which ch has resulted in a loss of charm. All this open world garbage like Tales of Arise full of bloated fetch quests. Take me back to the days of Shadow Hearts, Suikoden 3, dark cloud 2, FFX, etc any day of the week !
How are they bettwr when its nothing but remakes and remasters. Nothing new has been done in years. You have lukewarm releases like xiv and tales of arise. Im 40 and my first nes games besides mario and zelda were jrpgs. This whole 8dea is false. Innovation and creativity is dying. Falcom is one of the few i still respect(and no not atlus metaphor was p5 with current day politics).
Whats worse is they water down characters in the name of censorship and DEI. I do not play my trails games by NISA they destroy them. I could write a NOVEL of all the changes cold steel and kuro made from NISA.
JRPGs thrived in the ps1 and ps2 era. Theyre were some bangers here and there in the ps4 era. Now only switch and a select few pockets of companies make anything new. Also xenosaga is better than xenoblade, people play for the narrayive and im sorry but sagas was way better.
Gaming Industry must crash. Too many normies. Gaming was a passion in the 90s, i miss getting picked on at school for playing FF7 because only" dorks" played that stuff. Now everyone must be into it, it must be for everyone( DEI woke SBI) and artistic and developmental decisions are made for $$$ soley not for vision. JRPGS are worse, get out of your echo chamber
The overwhelming majority of JRPGs released (and games, actually) are brand new. Your premise is fundamentally, objectively wrong. Please revise.
What I mainly see in this comment, I’m afraid, is anger and resentment from another presumably male and middle-aged gamer who supposes to live outside of “ideology” himself, and whose increasingly more conservative politics (inspired by the echo chamber of the TH-cam gaming community revolving around people like Asmon) is unfortunately making him incapable of enjoying new things. I personally have noticed that growing up makes me more conservative in some areas, but surely this paranoid fear of “woke” and “DEI” has to stop at some point. There are valid and nuanced criticisms to be made about “woke” and “DEI”, but this is getting ridiculous, and I fear for the sake of these men.
wrong. jrpgs are the worst theyve evedr been in the past couple years. the ps2 era will always be the peak of jrpgs objectively.
As a Canadian thank you for acknowledging our true thanksgiving 🥲