Star Ocean 4 impressions and my problem with JRPGs
By demonbear 19 Comments
So, with my brand new xbox 360, i thought i'd give an rpg a go so my friend came over last friday with his copy of Star Ocean 4, said he loved it and I should play it.
And I did. And i think it sucks.
I have an issue with JRPGs in general it seems, and every time a brand new one gets out and looks like its gonna be something I might like, i get caught up inthe excitement and forget I don't even like JRPGs, start to play it and then remember, slowly but surely, why I hate those games.
There's so much I wanna write about, where do I start?
I guess I'll start with what matters most to me in an rpg : Characters. Without the story, an RPG just becomes a generic 3rd person action game, It's the reason why we play these things. To see what's going to unfold. Where these characters are headed, what's gonna happen to the hero, or your character. But you can have the best story in the world, if you don't give a f*** about those characters, it's not gonna be a fun experience. You have to relate to those characters.
See, I like north american rpgs ( I say north american because Canada is a part of that continent, believe it or not and we make pretty good rpgs. Oh and btw America is a continent, not a country. Thank you) because in most of them, you get to create your own character. There is a few exceptions here and there but its a clear tendancy. Which brings me to my first problem with JRPGs : Characters
The first distinct difference between JRPGs and NARPGs is that japanese developpers are control freaks. They have to control every thing you do, everything that happens in the story, the way it looks and the themes that THEY want to talk about. on the North american side, its more about choice, especially in the recent years. Most rpgs give you Character customisation and choice. This is what i prefer. I like building my character before entering an RPG. Because this way, i'm going to relate to this guy, it's MY guy. Some might argue that having a fixed main character will allow greater character development and and more solid story compared to " Generic Hero number 22045 " and they are mostly right but Mass Effect proved you can create your character ( Captain Shephard ) and still allow lots of customisation without hurting the story.
I'm not going to go deep into why I don't like the guy, It mostly comes from what happens in the game so I'll let you play it for yourself but those who did play it know what i'm refering too. And it's something we've all seen over and over again with these characters before.
But that wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the crew is fine right? Well for me, they all sucked. Most of them are tweens anyway. Yet again. That's another thing JRPGs are having a hard time with, mature heroes.
Aren't japanese developpers checking what's being done elsewhere? I played Star Ocean 4 and all along i though : You know, this could've been a playstation 2 rpg. Except for the graphics ( and on't get me started on the animation in this game, it's horrible. It's basically like watching a Thunderbirds episode. Yes, it's that bad. ), theres nothing next gen about this game. At all.
And this brings me to another issue I have with JRPGS : Combat and character progression.
Anyone who played a Star Ocean game or a "Tales of" game before knows how the combat works. To it's credit, at least it's not turnbased, which is in my iopinion a style of combat of the past, and nothing says PS1 like a turnbased jrpg. But in the end, its number porn. That's all there is to it. You smash a button, bunch of numbers appear on screen that you don't care about and eventually the bad guy dies, you get a not-so-cool " you win" screen with a whole bunch of number thrown at you again, and every now and then you level up.
This is another difference between NARPGs and JRPGs, when you level up, THEY control what goes where. Some like it that way, I don't. In Star Ocean 4, it works like this, after your "you win" screen, it zooms on the character who's leveling up and on the right part of the screen they throw every stat boost he gets from leveling up and that's it. Where's the fun in that? Again, control freak method right here.
So what i'm saying is Star Ocean 4 is a perfect example of why I think japanese developpers are outdated right now. They stopped innovating a long time ago and every JRPG tries to be FF7 all over again. Nothing in these games are next gen, except for the textures, this game could've been a playstation 2 game and that's a problem for me.
I played those. Isn't it time for JRPGs developpers to evolve? To push the genre to it's new level?
Well, Star Ocean isn't tempting anything new so I guess if you liked those, you're going to like this one. For me, i'll be waiting for the first true evolution in the JRPG genre. Problem is, i might way a long, long time. But hey, at least Mass Effect 2 is coming...