What’s up with Japanese RPG’s?

I'll tell you what's NOT wrong with JRPG's. Lightning. <3

Japanese RPG’s made me the gaming nerd I am today.  I can remember the exact moment that gaming TRULY hooked me.  I went over to my friend Patrick’s house one afternoon.  His step brother was visiting from out of town and had brought with him a game called Final Fantasy 2 for the Super Nintendo.  Pat and I sat, enthralled, as Palom burned through the ice blocking the entrance to Mt. Ordeals.  Then in battle, I soon saw Fire TWO.  Never mind that I had no concept of Fire One, Fire two was damn impressive.  More than anything though, what struck me about FF4 (Final Fantasy numbering makes no sense, thanks AMERCIA!) was the story.  As in, it was telling one.  I dove in head first to the world of Cecil, Kain, Golbez, Rydia, and all the rest.  Games that tell amazing stories have been my favorite ever since.  So why did the JPRG’s of my youth give way to a general feeling of “meh” now?  What happened?

Blue Dragon: Because magic means having a weird ass shadow

THIS IS MAGIC

Blue Dragon is a unique game for me.  Namely, it’s one that I have actually beaten.  Oh, granted, it took me a while.  I teetered on the edge of no return of this JRPG for about a year and a half before I finally piloted my airship-fish into the atmosphere sucking hole at the end of the game in order to throw down with the last boss.  I’m glad I did.  While Blue Dragon is pretty much what you’d expect to find in JRPG fare, the ending was something bizarre enough to keep the game in my head nearly a year after I’ve beaten it.  I’ve played through portions of the game since then as well, mainly because I’m a sucker for games that have a job system in place.

That’s not to say Blue Dragon doesn’t have problems.  Most games do.  But the way Blue Dragon bypassed its own, personal issues was by being totally messed up and throwing in a liberal helping of cubes late game.  There’s probably going to be spoilers in here, for the record, though I’ll let you know when they’re coming.

Infinite Space: The Energizer Bunny of extraterrestrial games

If you’re a regular reader here at Faceplant then you know that I’m not particularly fond of jRPGs. In fact, I’m relatively new to the whole RPG genre. But Infinite Space for the regular old Nintendo DS intrigued me. I read about it on a news post by one Tycho Brahe early last year, and finally got around to renting it from GameFly about a month ago. As I understand it, it isn’t your typical jRPG. You’re not running through a fantasy land stabbing blobs or fighting Cthulhu. Nope. You are the 16-year-old commander of a space fleet.

Final Fantasy 4 DS: It keeps happening

"M'lord! We're in 3D for some reason!"

One of my favorite probably unintentional ironies in the video game world is the fact that Final Fantasy is still a thing.  I know the original Final Fantasy was named as such since Squaresoft never intended to survive past the game’s release, but that one, sole game resurrected the entire franchise and made the name Final Fantasy a household name.  I like the fact that the last fifteen bajillion final fantasy games released have been the “final” fantasy.  Not sure why.

Anyway, Final Fantasy 4 is a game that is close to my heart.  Originally released in America in 1991, back when the console war between Super Nintendo and Sega was so violent people actually got stabbed every now and then, Final Fantasy 4 was the second game in the franchise to mosey its way across the sea from Japan to us.  I’m not sure at this point if I read this statistic or am making it up entirely, but since then, Final Fantasy 4 has seen more remakes and re-releases than any other Final Fantasy game.  I’ve been playing the DS incarnation of this game for a while now, and with the announcement of another Final Fantasy 4 compilation game for the PSP hot on the heels of an episodic Nintendo Wii exclusive sequel, I figured this was as good of a time as any to go over the game to see why.

Radiant Historia: Do it again, whore

:(

Anyone who has been reading Faceplant! for a while is probably aware that I’m a sucker for RPG games.  I like the tedious micro management that accompanies battles and character upgrade menus, watching the best laid plans of the vapid and shallow characters in the game go completely to hell, and nothing quite beats that feeling you get when a game world completely sucks you in.  It’s kind of a hit or miss science, really, and every RPG I pick up gives me a certain sense of unease.   Waaaay back a while ago, I discussed which video game was THE BEST GAME EVER with Enosh and Elrood, and one of the things I said I look for is a game’s replay value.  To me, a truly great game is one that you keep coming back to after you’ve completed it, one that continues to suck you in regardless of how advanced of spiffy newer games have become.

Well, I guess someone at Atlus games was reading the article.  Radiant Historia has tons of replay value.  Actually, it’s required.  In fact, if you don’t go back through and replay sections of the game over BEFORE you have completed the game, you can just forget about actually reaching the game’s true ending.

Resonance of Fate: John Woo would be so proud

Resonance of Fate caught my eye a few months back because it still remains one of the few RPGs that exist on the Xbox 360, which is quickly becoming overrun by first and third person shooters.  Sure, we’ve got the Mass Effect series, Oblivion and Fallout 3, but a lot of the traditional RPG formula has been removed from these games and slapped into a new, shiny real-time game engine.  I can’t say I blame them, what with how poorly traditional RPGs are received in the American market these days, but I grew up with the old school RPGs and you know what?  I miss them.

This game, ominously titled Resonance of Fate for some reason, simultaneously caters to and defers from the old school formula and makes something rather unique, in a run of the mill sort of way.

Final Fantasy XIII: like a fat man on rollerskates

Final Fantasy has become a household name, but it also has made essentially every review I’ve seen of the game completely unreliable.  When it comes to stories and game play mechanics, the Final Fantasy series has seen it all, with varying degrees of success.  But now, everyone expects the series to be exactly the way it was when they fell in love with it, and every time someone mentions the name Final Fantasy, it’s immediately followed by what the latest game should have been.

Imagine that you live in a delightful neighborhood on top of a hill, in a small Podunk town somewhere in the north-east, with charm just dripping off of every branch.  An orphanage for woeful children is at the bottom of the hill, which your whole town contributes to on a regular basis.  Your next door neighbor is a three hundred and fifty pound, reliable pork barrel of a man, who lets call, oh, I don’t know, Brett.