FFX was the pinnacle of JRPG's for me. I just don't enjoy the real-time stuff they've been trying, although FFXV looked pretty promising on that front. But yeah, turn based, fleshed out characters, crazy insane stories that barely make sense but are completely awesome, ridiculous hair and massive boobs.
I'm not sure what it was, but something about FFX felt 'complete'. There was so much stuff to customize, even though you only wanted a couple of things in the end.
Consistent pacing is probably the single biggest thing for me. It doesn't need to be long, or short, or move fast, or slow, but it just needs to move at a regular, steady pace and stay interesting from beginning to end.
@zevvion brought it up already, but I think FFX is a perfect example of this and it's why it's one of my favorite games of all time. The pilgrimage stays consistently interesting. It's a somber character focused adventure, grinding is not mandated, and because of how the pilgrimage is structured, there is never a huge stretch of that game where nothing is happening. You always know your goal, you're always discovering new people and new places.
It's where games like Persona 3 or Xenoblade fall short, for me. There's too many stretches of nothing. You've made this huge, long game that drip-feeds information and pushes a grind on you. It sucks. I think nostalgia is part of what plays a factor in Chrono Trigger love, but it's undeniable that CT is also a game that stays remarkably respectful of the players time without sacrificing story or combat depth. In my mind, the best JRPGs are the kind that have stories where things are always unfolding, and you are always discovering something new along your journey.
As for innovation, that shit's overrated. It's the sort of thing games writers who barely play JRPGs in the first place spend their time complaining about. JRPGs are incredibly diverse, in all aspects, from the stylistic to the mechanical, and don't get enough credit for being so. Where they fall short more often than not is having too much padding.
A unique world to explore, a strong central plot, and some kind of menu-driven combat system. For me those are the things that matter and probably in that order if I'm being honest. The world and the sense of place (which includes npcs and monsters) are what really draw me in. A dynamic central plot then provides the driving force and most of the memorable moments. Finally an intellectually stimulating combat system that focuses on making correct choices and strategic decisions over quick reflexes.
The genre seems to be radically rejecting almost all of the things that I care about in terms of combat, with most games either leaning more towards action or MMO style automated combat (or in the case of FFXIII both at the same time). The worlds seem to somehow be getting larger, but more diluted in their iconography and memorable locales. While older games shortcut much of the navigation between major dungeons and cities by using world maps, new JRPGs seem to be erring on the side of huge worlds like the Elder Scrolls games where the quantity of the content takes precedence over the individuality of the locales. There was something useful about world maps and the shorthand they provided that set JRPGs appart, but that seems to be gone now. And from a story perspective it may be that my tolerance for Anime style storytelling has gone down or I've grown tired of the same tropes, but I haven't seen a main storyline that has grabbed me in a long time. I would love to see a story that isn't about a bunch of adolescent adventurers learning about the power of friendship and self belief in the face of some unpronouncable deity bent on world domination/destruction.
South Park: The Stick of Truth is the most fun JRPG I've played in a while and that is a really upsetting sentence to type (shoutouts to Zeboid games for at least making fun and innovative combat systems for the Penny Arcade games).
A great JRPG makes a great JRPG. Seriously.
Great JRPGS:
And I'm sure I'm forgetting like, dozens of other fantastic ones or ones that I simply never played (don't fucking say Lost Odyssey I hate that game).
EDIT: Oh right, a point. Basically there's no "thing" or checklist that makes a JRPG great. All of the games I listed above have very different strengths and weaknesses.
Story and characters trump all, for me. It also helps if the combat is fun, but if the story is great I'll suffer through. Great music also helps.
The least important aspect would probably be graphics. But high random encounter rates and forced grinding can be deal breakers.
@poisonjam7: I definitely agree - for me, having characters that are interesting and have compelling story arcs is really what's going to get me through a JRPG. Fun gameplay mechanics are definitely appreciated, and can obviously make a good JRPG into a great one, but a game can still be fun even if it is your standard turn based JRPG.
But man, any large amount of grinding in a game turns me off really fast. I don't mind busting out some levels here or there, but if I have to spend too much time battling the same enemies over and over and over, I'm out! No thanks!
A number of things are integral to a successful JRPG, including but not limited to random encounters, and the inclusion of at least some of the following elements:
Anyway, I felt this post is suitable as per the OP's question. :p
@egg: What else could you have been doing while writing that post?
Damn, you're right. I could have played videogames instead.
EDIT: Oh, I completely forgot one. This one is SUPER IMPORTANT. If any aspiring game developers are reading this, listen up! I will tell you a little oft overlooked trick that's pretty much integral to creating a masterfully crafted game experience. Here's what your game must have: At one point in the game the player must come upon a branching path. One of the paths is invariably required to proceed with the game, while the other path is a dead end but contains treasure.
Few RPG's do this, but the ones that do tend to be the most riveting and memorable!
A good turn based battle system and great soundtrack is just about all I need.
I can't say I have any hard requirements, but the last JRPG I played, Bravely Default, helped me sort out my priorities a bit.
I mean, in that game, the story is whatever, and near the end became actively detrimental to my experience. However, I soldiered on because I loved the feeling of ownership over my party. They gave me enough flexibility within its game systems that I felt like I was playing my way. I really enjoy it when RPGs emphasize deep party-building.
All this talk of JRPGs and no mention of Dragon Quest VIII. I just started playing it again recently, and god is it great (character models are also surprisingly good, decided to play it emulated). I can't accurately describe it, but the sheer feeling of 'adventure!' you feel when you step out of the town onto the wide fields and have the music playing is absolutely nailed. Game also had a neat mechanic of speccing characters into 5 different skill groups. Every character overall fits a specific archetype and could only equip specific weapons, but you could decide to dump points for them to learn new spells or become better at using certain weapon classes. It's only flaw, if I were to find one, is that the game basically demands that you grind early in the game before tackling the first dungeon. It's just not going to happen otherwise. This is because your team actually doesn't have that much HP, nor MP to easily heal yourself with. The story is simple, but has a charm to it, which the art style brings across quite well. It's the Journey of the Cursed King man.
Also, I know this isn't a must for games, but I do enjoy it when a game doesn't punish me for staying with a core team of people. I don't like games where there are like 5 non-combatants in the party and I still have to worry about levelling everyone up. FFX gets a bit of a pass on that its battle system was built around constant character swapping (usually a character swap in a JRPG would consume a turn, but you could swap characters in and out in FFX and still have a turn).
Turn-based JRPGs that offer ways of quickly dispatching bosses if you know what you're doing also get a plus from me. The SMT games were always quite good at this, they are basically the Batman of JRPGs; with enough preparation (outside of grinding), any enemy can become quite beatable. On the flipside, you could say that the fact that only way you could prepare yourself for a boss is by getting your ass handed to you because you just happened to have a party with weaknesses that the boss could exploit is a bit of a design flaw.
All this talk of JRPGs and no mention of Dragon Quest VIII. I just started playing it again recently, and god is it great (character models are also surprisingly good, decided to play it emulated). I can't accurately describe it, but the sheer feeling of 'adventure!' you feel when you step out of the town onto the wide fields and have the music playing is absolutely nailed. Game also had a neat mechanic of speccing characters into 5 different skill groups. Every character overall fits a specific archetype and could only equip specific weapons, but you could decide to dump points for them to learn new spells or become better at using certain weapon classes. It's only flaw, if I were to find one, is that the game basically demands that you grind early in the game before tackling the first dungeon. It's just not going to happen otherwise. This is because your team actually doesn't have that much HP, nor MP to easily heal yourself with. The story is simple, but has a charm to it, which the art style brings across quite well. It's the Journey of the Cursed King man.
Also, I know this isn't a must for games, but I do enjoy it when a game doesn't punish me for staying with a core team of people. I don't like games where there are like 5 non-combatants in the party and I still have to worry about levelling everyone up. FFX gets a bit of a pass on that its battle system was built around constant character swapping (usually a character swap in a JRPG would consume a turn, but you could swap characters in and out in FFX and still have a turn).
Turn-based JRPGs that offer ways of quickly dispatching bosses if you know what you're doing also get a plus from me. The SMT games were always quite good at this, they are basically the Batman of JRPGs; with enough preparation (outside of grinding), any enemy can become quite beatable. On the flipside, you could say that the fact that only way you could prepare yourself for a boss is by getting your ass handed to you because you just happened to have a party with weaknesses that the boss could exploit is a bit of a design flaw.
You're not entirely wrong, but you can mitigate a lot of that by keeping a varied and powerful set of demons/personas on your person. You can't cover all your bases, and switching out demons consumes a turn, but any savvy player would try to avoid having two demons with the same weakness in their active party at any time. That press-turn battle system is so addicting. And besides, Dark Souls is pretty much the same way - you can walk into a boss room and never know what to expect, but you're probably going to get your ass kicked the first few times.
For me, the thing that can really make a JRPG is a sense of adventure and growth along that adventure. Whatever contributes to that feeling of grand, exciting adventure through many different places and full of many different people. Chrono Trigger captured this best and that's what I loved so much about that game.
Great mechanics and systems like those in the SMT games can also pull me in
I didn't start really playing many JRPG's until after I beat Chrono Trigger and I still haven't played as many as I'd like. They're often pretty long and obtaining a lot of the classics legally is often not cheap. Still, the JRPG's I've played that really hit it out of the ballpark - SMT Nocturne, Persona 4, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV and VI - those games have stuck with me more than anything I've played in the past few years.
I also don't think you can make a great JRPG without memorable music. Every JRPG I've ever enjoyed has had a soundtrack to it that I've listened to outside of the game.
None of this is to say that the genre doesn't have pervasive issues - they still rely on random encounters, for instance, which I don't mind but I stopped playing the genre for about half a year after I beat FFVI because I had just had enough of finding myself mashing A again after five feet. That's just genre fatigue, but there needs to be a way to clear a room so that encounters just don't happen. SMT IV almost had it right - spawn the encounters as blobs of some sort and fight those so you at least know when an encounter is coming - but they never stop spawning. I also think they could do something else with MP - find some other way to limit my casting of the endgame uber-spells, or just don't limit them at all. This was one of my problems with Bravely Default, you simply don't have enough MP to use a black mage's abilities often, meaning that one character is going to be useless while you grind them up for bosses.
The one thing I don't want to go away is turn based combat. OK, yeah, when you think about it, it's totally silly to stand in a line taking turns whacking each other, but man I've had so much fun with a lot of turn based games. The SMT series especially sticks out in my head, with all of its focus on strengths and weaknesses and buffs and so on and so forth. I could grind in Persona 4's dungeons for ages and just never get bored. Some people say that combat system is boring and I'm completely baffled, it's the best turn based system I've ever played.
If Shin Megami Tensei has taught me anything, you need plenty of weird satanic/pseudo-religious references to compliment well-made, mechanically interesting combat and characters who don't immediately drive you insane.
Make the plot and character motives coherent, but the mythos and world vague and exotic.
Spiky hair.
Surly protagonists.
Turn-based combat.
An ending I'll (usually) never see.
Dick monsters on chariots.
I guess it depends on how you quantify it being great. While I imagine the length of a lot of JRPGs turns a lot of people off, especially those without much free time for such things, I have to imagine there is a flip side to that where for some people, JRPGs probably act as a bit of a comfort food. You can just fall into them and play them for so long with most of them never really being particularly demanding. And that might be an important thing to think about, because sometimes it's nice to have an experience like that, so you might end up quite enjoying your time with a JRPG that you wouldn't actually consider objectively to be anything more than good.
Thinking about the JRPGs that I consider exceptional... Suikoden 2 and Persona 3 are the ones that immediately come to mind. It's an interesting thought experiment trying to discern what qualities could make a JRPG great in isolation, or maybe the best ones are the sums of their parts? My gut feeling is that the story, characters, storytelling etc is probably the important bit. I guess the Japanese RPGs that I'm really fond of are all fairly unique, like the two I mentioned, stuff like Disgaea and Vagrant Story etc
Great story, great music and a fantasy setting.
What I don't like...well I wrote it out but then deleted it since this isn't what its about. But there's certainly more about the modern era jrpg that I don't like.
For me, an interesting world and characters are paramount, along with good writing. Even if the concept of the story isn't particularly novel/original, if the execution is good then I eat it up. The reverse is also true, where a really compelling story concept and/or characters can make up for a lack of execution. I'm fairly accomodating for voice acting, but if the VA doesn't meet my standards, then it really kills the game for me. To the point where I would rather the game didn't have VA.
This is a more recent thing, but the soundtrack is also a big part of a good JRPG. Every time I walk into a new area, my biggest hopes are interesting area concept, good use of color/lighting, and a mood-appropriate and/or memorable melody.
On the gameplay front, the most crucial thing is that the play styles of my characters should reflect their personality/background (Pinguino shows us how this works), and the leveling system should not in anyway allow me to max out every stat or give every character access to every other character's core skills (i.e. the Sphere Grid is the antithesis of this). I prefer action-RPGs since it allows for skill to make up for a number deficiency without requiring very specific strategies, but as long as the system is interesting (ex: Mana Khemia's time gauge, party swapping, and breaking; SMT's press-turn style system) I also like turn-based games. A JRPG gets mega bonus points if it's balanced so that grinding isn't something I feel the need to do to progress (i.e.if I fight all/most of the battles on the way, I should be appropriately leveled); I like games that give me a solid challenge, but not a challenge that is surmounted by better numbers.
All that said, some of my favorite JRPGs are (unordered):
I would also add Boktai, but the first is my favorite and it's the only one that is more stealth-action game than action-RPG.
For what it's worth, I'm super hyped for FFXV for some combination of the aforementioned reasons.
Good pacing between story and action. Interesting character and party progression (gameplay). Aestethics, music and art. And then it's a toss up between focusing on character development or larger themes and plot. I want to feel like the game has a coherent and interesting vision behind it that becomes apparent to the player as you play. Though I want that in every game of every genre.
I'm cautiously optimistic about FFXV at this point. But it's taking inspiration from things I'm not neccessarily into. When will this obssession with "large" emtpy wastes of open worlds end.
EDIT: I guess I'll just mention that FFX is my personal favorite. Based on my parameteres up top it sacrifices some gameplay pacing and a lot of character development to focus more on the story and the themes of the characters rather than the characters themselves. And the gameplay is great when I get to do it instead of stupid minigame shit.
One of my top 10 games ever.
This is a good question since I don't think I even like RPGs all that much and JRPGs less so. I like the idea of cool looking people saving the world and leveling up ,but rarely do I like the gameplay or ,as I got older, the story. The only JRPG I actually finished was Tales of Xillia. I had fond memories of late night sessions of Tales of Symphonia with a cousin and I heard that Xillia was good. I liked Xillia but I wouldn't call it great. I've played way more JRPGs(and RPGs in general) since then so I'm starting to get a good picture of what I personally like.
Personally I think that good characters can hold up a bad plot, but not vice-versa. Writing in general is probably the most important thing since there are other RPGs if I want to just level up and get cool stuff. On top of that, I have to actually like the gameplay. The traditional turn-based combat systems are a huge turn off for me. Its why I'm hesitant to try most of the Final Fantasies or its similar looking ilk(I also couldn't get into Persona 3 after watching hours of dungeon crawling in the P4 ER).
Aesthetics things like art, music, and even graphics mean much less to me, as long as its not horrendously bad. Though age can be a turnoff(sorry SNES). Most of the time I'll warm up to the vast majority of the game if I like the story and how it plays,see Dwarf Fortress. Overal I think that Xillia is pretty well-rounded in most regards ,but nothing really stands out majorly. The combat lost its novelty 2/3rds of the way through but the story was good enough for me to see it through.
Currently I'm enjoying Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. There's a real low-key presence for a JRPG. And the writing is very meticulous and earnest in the sense that everyone has something to say and its rarely straight up exposition. I And the combat's fun ,pseudo grid based, and high damage, which means it can really move. It presses a lot of good buttons for me early on and I hope it keeps at it.
The thing that drew me to JRPG's in the first place was probably the characters. I want a unique cast of cool people, and I don't want them overshadowed by the plot, I want the plot to be about them. I want the gameplay to be about them too, building them into your own custom killing machines, and then using every character to orchestrate your enemies demise. A lot of the genre's trends have pulled the focus away from that, it seems unintentionally. If they'd stop worrying about how cool their combat looks I feel like a lot of pieces would fall back into place.
Honestly all the good JRPG's have had a damsel in distress scenario that worked great for me. I remember really feeling those moments of "I have to go rescue Dagger/Rinoa". The characters need to be central to the story, it can't just be something big happening and it just HAPPENS that this is the crew to do it. There needs to be some kind of reason.
Combat also matters, mostly, there needs to be a choice that makes experienced players beat bosses in a tenth the time. FF8 is one of those combat systems which if you know how to handle is ridiculously imbalanced, probably can beat most bosses in 5 moves or less and while this might sound bad, I think its great, its like an action replay of the game.
As someone who played lots of JRPGs as a kid but has since soured on the genre for the most part, this is an interesting question. I recently made a list of my favorite games, and I noticed rather consistent patterns in the kind of games I liked, regardless of genre:
http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/kumatose/lists/favorite-games-in-alphabetical-order/352650/
1) First and foremost, the JRPGs that hold up best are those that break with the genre's traditions to a significant degree.
An offbeat or unusual premise is a huge plus. No saving the princess and collecting the crystals bullshit.
I also tend to prefer a modern setting (Persona, Mother, TWEWY) over a medieval one, though there are exceptions. I'm partial to Yasumi Matsuno games, mainly because I think he does political intrigue better than almost anyone else in the game industry.
A distinctive art style is practically a necessity at this point. I think the Megami Tensei games have spoiled me in this regard, because there's so much cool art in that series, even in the older titles like Soul Hackers. Conversely, the character designs in Final Fantasy frequently make me cringe, and that doesn't look like it'll change with FF15. The only Tetsuya Nomura designs I like are those in The World Ends with You, which is also one of the best Square RPGs ever, hands down.
Of course, this means I no longer have any interest in series like Dragon Quest, Grandia, Lunar, etc. It's not that every one of those games is terrible, but they offer very little to someone who's tired of JRPG conventions. Dragon Quest in particular is made for established fans of the genre who don't want much novelty outside of some tweaks to the battle system.
2) Good writing. With the possible exception of Legend of Mana, I would argue that every single one of the JRPGs on my favorites list has much better writing than most games out there.
I should find the characters compelling in some way.
As I've grown up, more and more JRPGs fail this test. The Final Fantasy games especially so.
3) Gameplay. Speaking generally and honestly, I don't think JRPGs ever had remarkable gameplay. The problems with turn-based battles are obvious enough (grindgrindgrind/select the same attack over and over again/let the game play itself), as are the issues with the genre's obsolete conventions such as random encounters, which more recent titles have thankfully jettisoned. But even lots of action RPGs like Star Ocean (which I hate) often succumb to mindless button-mashing, and strategy RPGs like Tactics Ogre (which I like) have systems which are easily broken and rendered a joke.
On the other hand, I'm willing to overlook somewhat tedious mechanics and cumbersome interfaces -- though only within certain limits -- if criteria 1) and 2) are satisfactorily met. This applies to some non-JRPGs I like as well, e.g., Killer7, Jet Set Radio, and Viewtiful Joe all suffer from awkward control schemes which impair the game a bit, but not so much that they're unduly frustrating, and the games have so much else that appeals to me that I don't really care.
However, as I said, this is only true within certain limits. I think most 8-bit and 16-bit RPGs are downright unplayable today. I always laugh when people complain about Persona 4's battle system, because while it's not the most cutting-edge system on offer and could use some improvements, it's still more tactile and strategic and fun than 98% of the JRPGs out there. As a rule of thumb: the more streamlined, the better.
I do wish developers would inject new life into turn-based battles, even by pilfering some features from older games, e.g. the scrolling HP meter from EarthBound was great. It allowed enemies to do serious damage and gave the player a sense of urgency without being cheap about it. The Judgment Ring from the Shadow Hearts games was cool too, although it was wearing thin by the third title. Even the timed attacks from Super Mario RPG, as simple and child-friendly as that game was, made the battles feel more interactive and should be incorporated into other games. I think turn-based battles still have lots of charm, but they also need some freshening up.
Finally, while this might've sound like a harsh evaluation of the genre, I will say that despite all the problems I have with JRPGs, the very best ones still rank among my favorite games ever. Furthermore, I prefer JRPGs over Western RPGs for various reasons which I will not address right now, and I've little tolerance for WRPG snobs who dismiss JRPGs as silly weeaboo crap. I've never understood how the Tolkien tropes which dominate many Western RPGs are somehow superior to the anime tropes in JRPGs (I don't think Tolkien was all that great of a writer either). And while some WRPGs have mature storylines, they're not much better than the best JRPGs. I think Persona 2 is as well-written as any WRPG currently available.
It needs to have an interesting main cast of characters.
You need to travel through a vast land / space / galaxy / plain.
The cities and villages need to be varied and have their own style.
The combat mechanism can be action oriented or tactical, as long as it still feels like you're making strategic decisions to win the battle.
The world and it's lore should be interesting. Many people don't like Final Fantasy 8 because of the lame storyline, but that game had some really interesting ideas. Rivaling schools as PMC's, Sorceresses ruling countries, Planning a heist on a train to capture a president.
Secrets. Whether it's super hard bosses, extra summons or weird locations / lore expansion / minigames.
Battle system is key for me. I haven't liked any of the recent real time battle systems and prefer the old turn-based model. Despite their glaring flaws there is plenty that can be done to make a turn based system interesting, particularly when the use of tactics other than mashing 'Attack' over and over again are required.
I also love a deeply customisable character progression system. They are often flawed and easily broken but only if you read a guide or completely understand them. Things like FFVIII's junction system are regularly criticised but the first time I played it with no internet access and no guides it took me ages to understand and get the best out of it and even then I was nowhere near unbalancing the game the way that is possible.
Across the board being able to min-max or use certain strategies to trivialise a JRPG is criticised but that's normally only the case of you read up on how to do it or after many hours of learning the ins and outs. It's probably why in recent years JRPG's have become more sterile and boring to me and why I constantly seek out older ones to play without looking up any guides.
Discovering a game and it's secrets on your own is pretty much gone now and I think it's contributed to the lower quality of JRPG's in recent years.
Fairly simple for me, really.
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