BoB, you're missing the point of my argument. My point is that if you only play games for plot, then what does a JRPG offer from a storytelling standpoint, that another genre can't supply if they both have strong stories? For instance, I can say with confidence that MGS3 is a better written game than anything SE released on the PS2, and it's not even a close race. I would also argue MGS3 offers a better gameplay experience over everything SE released on the PS2, again, for me this is not even a close race. Yet I still like FFXII and FFX... well we won't dwell on that.Originally Posted by Loony BoB
Please, for the sake of common sense, stop comparing FFXIII with Uncharted. Goodness me. It's like comparing Grand Theft Auto IV with The Last of Us. They're bloody different games.
Uncharted, as much as I adore the series, is not a story focused game at all. It's a gameplay focused game, that happens to have great characters and a passable story (I mean, really, the Uncharted stories are generally about as basic and improbable as you'll get in gaming).
So if you're going to say...
...then at the very least bother to find a story driven action game. Mass Effect is probably a better example.My point stands that a story driven action game can deliver a grand story on par with an RPG that had little else to offer.
Fact is, though, these games are shooters and shooters are generally the most popular games out there. They are dramatically different from JRPGs in so many ways that this very statement baffles me. You might as well question why point and click games are still a thing when every other game involves far more pointing and clicking and other stuff. Basically, some people don't want other stuff in their game.
And that's my pet peeve of this specific thread out of the way.
Essentially I disagree that other games are doing story and character "just as good, if not better" than the best RPGs are, with extremely few exceptions (The Last of Us, Dreamfall, perhaps Mass Effect although it fell apart in the long run). I agree with anyone/everyone who says that the story writing is a major problem with RPGs today. I think the characters are often pretty good (I think people get stuck up on cliché personalities, but eccentrics are part of what makes a character interesting and there are only so many eccentricities you can make) but the plots themselves are often very thin, and the villians don't trigger emotional responses from us, nor do the 'big moments' in the games. I think the character dialogue tends to be okay, so the writing of the characters is fine, just... they have such great ideas they throw at us and then they never really grow on them to the correct degree. Also, they lack the balls to kill off characters, or put in any moments that will pluck at our heartstrings.
Finally, and I'm not sure if this has been brought up at all, but we experience emotive responses differently and to different things than we did when we were in our teens. Our age and life experience has probably not helped our case for getting emotional responses to moments in the games. Still, I know movies and TV shows can engage me fully, so it should be possible for games to do the same. The Last of Us and Journey did. Why not FFXIII? Just a poorly executed plot that started out so well and ended so meh.
For the longest time, all the way back to the NES/Master System days, the JRPGs strength lied in its ability to tell a story which most other games didn't or couldn't do. Double Dragon, Mario, and Sonic all have excuse plots to give context but nothing more. It was games like Phantasy Star, DQIV, and FFIV that game the characters more purpose and meaning. If you wanted a thinking game back in the early 90s, you played RPGs or Adventure games because they were not simply about collecting coins, or beating up people. They offered narratives that gave real purpose and created characters with their own story arcs that offered emotional highs and lows, but with the advent of 3D and the gaming industry focusing on more of a cinematic experience, games that once only offered excuses to romp through their worlds were now focusing more on characters and world building. Metal Gear Solid, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Tomb Raider, and hell even Tekken and old school plat-formers began to start emphasizing story and world building into their games. What really separates FFVII from Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill? Largely gameplay and length but character writing and world building are something they all share.
Most JRPG fans I meet only play the games for the plot, I will argue the gameplay needs to be updated and made more challenging and then they whine on about how they are only here for the story and don't want the gameplay to be improved to hinder their ability to progress, at which point I always question why they bother to play when they could YouTube the custscenes or read a transcript of the game's plot. What does the game portion bring that is worth keeping? If your favorite RPGs didn't have a plot and were just blank slate characters, would you still play them and love them? I'm simply pointing out that JRPGs made a mistake twenty years ago and decided to put all their eggs into one basket in terms of focusing on plot and character to the detriment of everything else. Now they are in an age where good character and storytelling are a dime a dozen, the plots people are talking about this last gen are not XIII's, Xenoblades, or Dark Souls, people are talking about The Last of Us, Bioshock, Uncharted, Spec OPS: The Line, and Mass Effect. The genre's one major attribute is no longer unique or even as good as other genres that have adopted it. So then I ask what does an RPG have left to offer to a gamer? The point I'm getting at is that the genre needs to work on that gameplay part of the game and maybe take a chapter out of some of these other games play book.
When I was young, I forced myself to get further into FFVI, I reached the Opera scene and was surprised to find myself thrust into a story event mini-game with no heads up, I wasn't watching an opera unfold, I was experiencing it through gameplay and it changed my way of thinking both about FFVI and gaming's potential as a storytelling medium. Twenty years later, I'm playing Uncharted that made me playthrough set pieces inspired by Hollywood's finest, Modern Warfare had me experience a soldier's dying breath from radiation poisoning, MGS4 has me seamlessly jumping from story cutscene and frantic motorbike chases, Bioshock is twisting my mind with its clever writing, and FFXIII? Well it made me walk down a long pretty corridor until a custscene happened at which point I placed the controller down and watched it like a good boy, then when it was done, I moved forward, occasionally getting into fights where I let the A.I. do most of the heavy lifting before winning and moving onto the next plot point where again, I sat my controller and watched it like a movie. The genre that kind of pushed the envelope in making the player experience the story twenty years ago has now all but divorced the game and story from each other. The player is no longer involved in what happens, at this point I'm watching a movie or TV series, the player has no agency any longer, and if some of these other games can offer a more stimulating experience then why are we bothering with JRPGs?
I'm simply trying to get to the core of why we play these games, especially since all we ever seem to do is whine about how they are not as good as the old days but still we stand in line for the next installment because we've apparently been trained too. So why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Is there some inherent value to the genre that is understood but not said that keeps us coming back or are we simply Pavlov's Dogs salivating to a bell that signals the JRPG of yore we grew up on, even though its been years since the genre offered an experience on par with it?
Two of those games mentioned are handhelds and part of a different gaming generation as it is. Two of the other games are infamous for cleaning up the muck the genre has become by offering challenge and a streamlined interface that doesn't sacrifice the strengths of the genre's game design principles. Neither game is helped by one alienating its audience with its brutal difficulty and the other saw a limited release on a console most self-professed "hardcore" gamers would prefer to forget about. Doesn't change they were both wonderful though.
Yes, there were some great gems this generation, but you can't tell me that in another five years, supposing we get a good stock this current generation (and it's already looking more promising) that we won't be looking back to this period and saying it was definitely the weakest generation in terms of good games in the genre.
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I, for one, enjoy the games I play. You should try that sometime... focus on just having fun instead of analysing everything. 
