5 JRPG Mechanics That Changed The Genre & 5 That Are Outdated

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5 JRPG Mechanics That Changed The Genre & 5 That Are Outdated

JRPG's are known for certain game mechanics, and while some of them have revolutionized the genre, others can just go! JRPGs took a while to make it over to the west, but once they got here, they made a huge splash. Their early introduction came with ports of Famicom games over to the NES and SNES with such classics as Final Fantasy III (Final Fantasy VI in Japan) Chrono Trigger, and Secret Of Mana. While the onset was gradual at first, like a wildfire once westerners knew what they were getting into. Recent examples of critically acclaimed fan favorites are the Persona series, notably the somewhat recent , and the Dragon Quest series which has seen a bit of a renaissance. THEGAMER VIDEO OF THE DAY

Best A Boss We ve Met Pretty Early In The Game

Generally in JRPGs, the boss can be literally anyone, whether that's someone you previously thought was a friend, God, Satan, or some sort of extradimensional God/Satan synthesis. While the idea of your tiny little party filled with anthropomorphic animal knights or the random guy who maybe used to be a soldier but is probably just some kid killing one of these cosmic enemies is pretty appealing, there's also a lot more emotional gravity involved if it's just an acquaintance, an ex-party member, or your local rival. Being hit with some random new enemy who was pulling the strings at the end of the game tends to feel kind of cheap.

Worst Tons Of Random Battles

One of the main mechanics in most JRPGs is that you have an overworld area which the player exists in until you make contact with an enemy, at which point some sort of battle-transition screen pops up after fading into it with some pretty stressful music. While not everyone agrees on this mechanic, sometimes people enjoy JRPGs but don't want to have to spend literally all of their money on items whenever they get a chance to see a vendor. If everything is going well up until you run into an enemy that isn't even visible on the overworld and then you have to take out 4 enemies you were unprepared for, you're going to get frustrated.

Best Some Way To Escape Whatever Dungeon You re In

When you're exploring the countless dungeons of a JRPG, whether that's a tower or a cave or some other spooky monster-infested setting, you always want to have a way to get out easily, especially if you aren't prepared for it since it's your first time in. There's nothing worse than thinking you'll be okay since you got plenty of poison heals from a vendor in town just to have all of your party burnt to a crisp and badly in need of some sort of salve for their burn wounds. Or, say you get some really good, randomly generated loot after defeating a mini-boss and you're on the brink of death. Depending on the mechanics of the game in question, one more hit and you could lose out on your incredibly rare amulet.

Worst Player Has Amnesia

Many times in the story of JRPGs, since it's a time-honored tradition or because it's just easier to explain away a character's backstory than it is to fully flesh one out, we see that our protagonist has woken up in some strange place and has no clue what they're doing, who they are, or where they came from. It may also just as well be a lazy way to force a character arc by dropping hints about who your character is and where he came from throughout the progression of the story, rather than having a character undergo a more radical and fundamental change to their personality.

Best Creative Overworlds Dungeons

While there is the old-school overworld that essentially just looks like The Legend Of Zelda complete with wandering monsters and changing landscapes, games like Persona 5 really make use of interesting ideas about what the distinction between an overworld and a dungeon can look like. There are palaces, the image that someone's created in their mind of what the world looks like to them, and then there's just the regular world. Exploring these gives us interesting insights into their characters, and is a nice way to differentiate between safe places and places that are filled with enemies.

Worst Grinding

Sometimes in JRPGs, or really any RPG for that matter, you can't progress through an area without leveling a certain amount or finding a certain item drop. What happens at this point is your only option! Grinding! You fight the same enemies in the same area with the same moves and the same party members, hoping that eventually someone will drop a key to open a door, or you'll have learned enough new attacks with a higher damage rate than you had before to take on that area's boss. While the gameplay is fun and everyone loves a good battle, no one wants to kill the same enemies repeatedly. In the best-case-scenario, just fighting as the game wants you to should help your levels progress enough that you don't get stuck in grinding purgatory.

Best Appropriately Placed Save Spots

Some JRPGs will give you only 1 or 2 save points every so often, like at the beginning of a dungeon that's way too long to just have one save point like that. One of the best examples of games doing this well is when you have a save point directly before a boss. Since you haven't necessarily encountered this boss before and therefore don't yet have his/her/its quirk worked out, there's a good chance it'll destroy you during the first encounter, meaning that the save point will come in handy.

Worst 1000 Floor Dungeons

One of the tropes that are common in both good and bad JRPGs would be the 1000 floor dungeon. While this is a bit of hyperbole, it's not necessarily untrue. Many a time in JRPGs we've encountered dungeons that have upwards of 100 floors for honestly not much of a discernible reason. While yeah, dungeon crawling is fun, is there any reason that tower couldn't be two towers at about 60 floors each?

Best Seeing Stat Changes While Highlighting An Item

There's nothing worse than bad inventory management, and this is one of the worst offenders. If the player is about to equip a new item, please tell them whether or not that item's going to be an upgrade or a downgrade. No one has an issue with doing some quick math to see what's better and by how much, but don't make the player remove their old armor and put the new armor on to see how effective it'll be.

Worst Having To Fight Your Way Back Out Of A Dungeon

You've already spent a grueling hour or more to work your way through a dungeon, and now that you've defeated the boss, guess what! There's no cutscene warp, or new passage opened in the boss room or anything like that! It's just time for you to deal with fighting your way all the way back to the beginning of the dungeon. How much extra scripting would it have taken to just warp you back to the entrance? Not much. Please stop doing this.