Jar Time w/ Jeff: Jar Time With Jeff: A Bridge Too Jar - 08/21/2014

It may well be a very good game, but it's still JRPG as hell, and it clearly didn't grab the interest of people who don't play JRPGs. I rewatched that Quick Look just to remind myself what that game is, and the whole thing just seems so off-putting to me. I mean it starts with two characters arguing about whether they're on a giant monster's shin or its knee. Then Patrick opens the menu, and he has three characters that each have about 70 skills apiece that all need to be upgraded individually. Also that dude's sword has a hole in it.

I mean compare Xenoblade to a game like XCOM: Enemy Unknown. How much coverage were turn-based strategy games getting on Giant Bomb before that came out? Pretty much none. And plenty of them were being released, believe me. But it was a niche market, and so even though there were games coming out that were beloved within the turn-based strategy community, there was no real expectation that Giant Bomb would cover them.

But then Enemy Unknown comes out and blows the roof off that genre. It wasn't just great by the standards of turn-based strategy games, it opened up the entire genre and made it fun for people who aren't typically into a game like that, while also not dumbing down the gameplay in any significant way. And look what happened, Giant Bomb named a turn-based strategy game GOTY that year, a genre that was previously considered super, super niche and was extremely off-putting to a lot of people.

I'm not saying JRPGs need to stop being JRPGs. They just need to open up the gameplay significantly, make something that's not only a great game, but is welcoming and fun to outsiders to the genre without dumbing it down. When that game comes out, I'll bet you dollars to donuts that Giant Bomb will cover it.

This is actually a bit of a pet peeve of mine. X-COM is pretty much garbage compared to Valkyria Chronicles in terms of characters, gameplay, the whole shebang.

And what coverage did that get on this site? same as Xenoblade. A short, half-assed quick look and nothing else.

Look at pretty much any thread on any gaming forum about "must-haves for the ps3" and without fail Valkyria Chronicles is listed alongside giants like Uncharted 2 and Demon's Souls.

If anything the abundance of X-COM coverage reinforces the point.

@berserker976: Haha, okay. I have to assume you're trolling me now. A handful of people say they like it on message boards, therefore it's better? That's marvelous.

XCOM appealed to a wide audience, Valkyria Chronicles didn't. Neither did Xenoblade. It's as simple as that. It's not a question of whether you liked it, it's a question of broad appeal.

I would argue that Xenoblade was exactly that game and they still ignored it. XCOM is a good example, because if XCOM had been an Japanese SRPG, they would have ignored it to. Happened to other great games of that genre to, ignored because they are Japanese.

It becomes really annoying if more or less every game you like gets either made fun of or gets completely ignored by the Crew of site that you supported for years. I hoped so much that GB would hire someone that could break that annoying echo chamber, because that would have been a great way of fixing that issue, but they hired pretty much just the same guy again. And I don't have much hope that they will hire someone else any time soon.

@kevin_cogneto: Not trolling actually, Valkyria Chronicles is widely considered one of the best ps3 games (according to... enthusiasts, I guess?) But I still don't see why "appealing to a wider audience" makes something more or less deserving of coverage. There are plenty of games covered extensively on this site that don't "appeal to a wider audience."

I think what you may mean is "appealing to the giant bomb crew," and that brings me to my point. Just because it may not, at a surface level, appeal to any of the guys I don't think that means it deserves to be outright shunned.

And again I feel I have to stress that I don't necessarily want them to just start forcing themselves to cover games they don't like, but rather to acknowledge that it's unfortunate, and maybe try to work on some manner of solution.

@berserker976: But how are they being shunned? They did Quick Looks of every game we've talked about! Specifically, what more do you want them to do with these games?

I feel like the real problem I think is that most JRPG fans don't appreciate just how niche the genre has become outside of Japan. We no longer live in a world where a new Final Fantasy game is a system seller.

I mean look, I love point-and-click adventure games. There was a time in the 80's and early 90's when adventure games were pretty damn mainstream. Now, not so much. And as a fan of adventure games, I don't kid myself about that.

So I could point to a game like Gemini Rue and scream "This is the best adventure game in ten years! Why are the Giant Bomb guys not talking about it, this is a travesty, they clearly hate adventure games!" But I fully understand that they don't hate adventure games. It's just that adventure games are a niche genre now, and Gemini Rue is as niche as they come. It's not going for a wide appeal, it's a game that's only trying to appeal to hardcore adventure game fans. And that's great, it's part of why I love Gemini Rue. It's also why I have absolutely no expectation that Giant Bomb will cover it. They did a Quick Look of it, which is about as much as I could really hope for. I'm not sitting here demanding a "solution" to something when it's pretty obvious why a game like that is not going to get extensive coverage.

@kevin_cogneto: I hope I'm not giving the impression that I think this is a huge travesty, or that it's the most important thing to focus on.

I just don't see why it's crazy to want more coverage of broader tastes, point-and-click adventure games included. Like I said earlier, I was just using jrpgs as an easy example. The GB guys seem to very infrequently go outside of their comfort zone (Patrick notwithstanding) and I think that's just something that deserves to be considered going forward.

I mean you have to admit there are times when they seem to have relatively monochromatic tastes.

@berserker976: It's not that it's crazy to want it, it's that it's unreasonable to expect it. I mean Minecraft is the biggest game in the world, does that mean they need a dedicated Minecraft guy? A dedicated air traffic control simulation guy? How deep do you expect them to dig?

I'd rather they cover the games they want to cover with genuine enthusiasm than cover games they don't want to cover with false enthusiasm.

@kevin_cogneto: Me too! But I think that's a bit of a false equivalence. I don't think having a dedicated "guy" is the only way to get entertaining coverage, nor is forcing the guys to play stuff they don't want to play.

Obviously not everyone is going to have Patrick's experience, where trying a new genre leads to the discovery that you like types of games you didn't think you'd like, but I don't think it's unreasonable to try. Or maybe they could have an "unusual genre" day or something, I don't know, I'm not an ideas man.

I just think it's worth at least exploring some options.

Keep up the great work Jeff!

I strongly believe that the more a game's atmosphere matters the more important its audio design is.

Personally I think audio design is incredibly important in almost everything that I play. but i have a $500 headphone setup and still play arcade rhythm games, so i'm definitely an outlier

I think part of the problem with sound design is that it's a lot like translation in that most people only notice it when it's bad. For most games, the purpose of the sound design is to make sound that fits the action. The better the sound design is, the more it feels like a natural result of the action on screen and the harder it is for players to imagine it being created by a person in a studio.

Persona 4.

Nice! I can always use more jar time in my life.

Under the Ice!

Counter Strike would be a good example of a game where positional audio is important and well executed enough to be vital to the experience.

But outside of that and perhaps most horror games, sound doesn't really have a huge importance in many games, not to say that there isn't a lot more you can get out of the experience with a great setup.

Having said that, nothing worse than a gun that sounds like an air rifle, or a horrid soundtrack that's over sponsored and locked in.

I would say either the game is designed around sound, or the sound just needs to be of a standard where it is "good" and not bringing you out of the experience.

Would be great to see more intricate sound design in games.

People would be hard pressed to say P4 didn't receive enough coverage on the site though, surely. As someone who can't stand 90%+ of jrpgs I play (and someone stupid enough to keep playing them) the modern Personas (P3P and P4G) are the only ones I've truly enjoyed playing, and the start of the ER for it was the thing that got me to start.

yup! If you have a good headset and use your ears properly you'll have a huge advantage when you're knowing where the enemy's coming from.

@berserker976: There is no such thing as a good jrpg. It's all grindy bullshit and cheesy plots.

Ugh. There needs to be another tech collapse. The entire bay area economy can't be sustainable.

Woo hoo!! Jar time!!

This question has honestly been answered repeatedly on this site. It's an editorial site. They don't cover every game, or every genre. They cover what they want to and indisputably "big" releases.

Sorry they don't cover enough JRPGs for your tastes. There are plenty of other genres getting little play here. It's the nature of a small site.

I'm a professional sound designer.

The thing about my job is that it is largely thankless in the Video Game industry. The only time people notice it is when it's done poorly. There are some exceptions, like Jeff said - Battlefield, Mass Effect, et cetera - but, overall, we aim to have sound that fits the environments and scenarios well. If we've done our job, it sounds natural and is not distracting =)

This was great! I love when we're able to delve into Jeff's mind so he can impart some of his vast base of gaming industry knowledge. Please more of this.

This is the first thing I've watched with my shiny new subscriber status. Hi!

I'm glad Jeff said themes and genres should be separate because as he was talking about I was thinking they should be separate. I would further break it down between genre, setting and theme/style.

New subscriber here.

What's this jar series all about, that's not really just water in there is it?

I miss jar time

Loved this!

I wonder if the aim of the question asking about genres and people's "fanatical" devotion to correct labels comes from the backlash the term rogue-like has gotten in the last few years? It's a label that gets applied to just about every new game that happens to have no permanence between playthroughs, is punishing, and/or relies heavily on RNG. As someone who really likes rogue-like games I can understand the frustration. Though games like Binding of Isaac or Spelunky fit many of the criteria that constitutes a rogue-like they miss other components that are in games like Dungeons of Dredmor, Stone Soup or even mobile rogue-likes like Pixel Dungeon which are the more classic style of rogue-like. I think much of the frustration comes from worrying that using genres on so many games that stray from the classic design will end up diluting the ultimate classification that people use to find games. Like can you imagine if people referred to the Devil May Cry series as a brawler? It sort of fits, but the series is nothing like a classic brawler like Final Fight or River City Ransom.

I assume there's no separate audio feed for us podcast listeners? There's not much relevant video here; would be nice.

Also, no separate audio feeds for all premium podcasts? I like everything but wresting; I don't care to see it there.

I liked it better when he talked about 'cheevos'.