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It might be an attention deficit issue, but I feel like "slow burn" games are mostly on the Japanese side of things. I used to hate how formulaic they were, and then I hated how tone deaf they were. Like PS1 and PS2 a ton of JRPGs are all the same thing. And there was a ton. I got burned out trying to find the diamonds in the rough. Then companies like Capcom and Konami just decided that horror was dead. They no longer wanted to make good quality RPGs, Metroidvanias, platformers, beat'em'ups. Things that I actually liked about Japanese developers at the time that didn't require a 3-10 hour investment just to see if you even like it or not (which is what JRPGs were requiring at the time)
I like my games to have a decent hook. And I also have come to appreciate smart pacing
Japanese studios have been going through a renaissance lately and I've loved it. Fighting games came back, survival horror came back, set-piece action games came back, I just can't think of as many to say "omg my favorite games ever" for this list, but I've bought tons, enjoyed tons, and quite a few I bought just to show the studios I appreciate what they're doing. Valkyria Chronicles 4 comes to mind. It's extremely tropey, and makes me eye-roll quite a bit, but they tried. You can tell they lost some of their magic, but they didn't let that stop them from trying to give fans what they wanted, they are just too reliant on tropes and archetypes. So I never finished Valkyria Chronicles 4, but I'm happy I bought it, and I hope they make another. I have lots of games on my shelf like that
But speaking of tropes and archetypes. A lot of companies rely on them to do the work of storytelling and character development for them. So you see the same thing over and over. And I have nothing against using a trope or archetype as a baseline, but I can't stand if they don't build off of it. And in that same vein I've also found that Japan has a hard time with subtlety and real legitimate drama. They tend to be pretty on-the-nose, or over-the-top and use mostly what I consider to be melodrama rather than actual drama
I think that's why things like Persona are so well regarded. Real palpable and relatable drama. Where things like Trails of Cold Steel have a bunch of tropes and archetypes, and it takes more than 10 hours to burn in before they actually expand, and it's got some "oops, I fell face first in your lap" and stuff in the beginning, which turned me off from completing the 10 hour probation at the beginning and I fell out of it. Which happens with a lot of Japanese games for me
A little rambly, but hopefully that gives you the insight you want. And I have nothing against those games, they're just not for me. I need to be invested pretty early in a game. If you can tolerate the slow-burn beginning and feel like your time is being valued then I am jealous. I have sparce free time and need things a little more snappy, otherwise I feel like I wasted a couple hours walking around towns or fighting monsters when I could have been actually seeing story and saving lives in other games
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