JRPGs in a Post FF7 world.

[This was originally written as a comment to a poster who felt as though if another poster wasn't enjoying modern RPGs, it was necessarily something wrong with him, rather than with the types of RPGs being released to the market lately.]

Its interesting that the author has a genuine problem with this game/genre and lots of comments are of the black and white, take it or quit variety.  I think its valid to ask why a certain genre is having problems and whether the problems are with the games themselves or the players personal perception of them.

Personally I feel like the wheels have come off the JRPG train and heres why.  Early Japanese RPGs were strongly influenced by an American game called Wizardry which was released in the 80s.  Its popularity in Japan is such that while the franchise ended in America years ago Japan kept making new games under the Wizardry label.  Anyone who has played Etrian Odyssey on DS has experienced a Japanese direct descendant of the Wizardry formula.

One of the hallmarks of the Wizardry (and really all American RPGs,) style is a streamlined story that usually boils down to something like ‘you’re good, hes bad, get the item, save the world’.  This is true for even recent RPGs such as Fallout 3 and Mass Effect. Starting with FF7, JRPGs took the off-ramp into their own territory with stories with ambiguous antagonists, convoluted plots and taciturn or outright whiny protagonists.  In a short period I went from having an in game avatar that let me be a badass saving the world to taking a 3rd person view of someone I wasn’t sure I even liked who was on a quest to um… well I’m not sure exactly?  Something about my dad being a jerk when I was little?

As technology progressed it gave designers a much broader canvas and more media with which to tell a story and developers felt compelled to use their new toys to expand their projects into new territory, almost completely abandoning the lineage that got them there to begin with.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it creates a large divide in the styles of JRPG before and after FF7.

I cut my RPG teeth on the D&D ‘gold box’ games, the original FF, Dragon Warrior and Phantasy Star, all of which follow the Wizardry formula closely (particularly Phantasy Star).  Those who grew up in the post FF7 world will have a vastly different opinion of what makes a good JRPG I’m sure.