When will JRPGs stop insulting our intelligence?

[Sagacious-T]

Sorry I forgot what site I'm on, you guys cream your pants over every RPG where the character has anime eyes.

You're welcome to leave and never come back, asshole.

I was just joking. Lighten up Hidoshi!

[Eusis]

Well, uh, they have to build you up to the action.  If they just threw you into the thick of things you'd die constantly and you probably wouldn't learn anything, and that's not fun for everyone.

In the case of Final Fantasy XIII I do think they could've sped things up a bit more, I suppose the problem there is then the opening hours would be TOO cutscene saturated rather than just letting people play, but when you get so little to actually play I think I'd rather just be watching anyway with only a few fights to break it up. Then there's what's in the PA comic but that really is an exaggeration; it's not really a boring "tutorial" after the first few hours, and it didn't even take that long for me. However, at the same time the pay off is grotesquely underwhelming due to how anemic the open part of the game really is, depending more on palette swaps and grinding than substantial content. Any more than this should probably be left to the FFXIII thread though.

Though, the long starts can be attributed to just setting up the game's world, and logically you can't have fights then anyway, just look at Persona 3 and 4.

[Aeolus]

The first half of FFXIII was basically like the typical tutorial dungeon found in most Zelda games.

[CDFN]

I haven't played these games yet, but it seems that Demon's Souls and ROF can be pretty overwhelming right from the start.
In the case of FFXIII, they could've made the first 2 dungeons a bit shorter so that the story event that allows the characters to use magic happens a bit earlier but seriously, it takes about 2 and a half hours to get there and a good part of that is spend watching cutscenes anyway.
But anyway, the 2 games I mentioned seem to be good alternatives.

I'll go look at some characters with anime eyes now.

[Dincrest]

Gee, and I thought this was about JRPGs with clueless protagonists who cannot see plot twists a mile away, airheaded girls who throw themselves at the protagonist no matter how much of a douchebag he is, and plotlines involving the power of love and friendship being the key to the world's salvation.  I'm at the final boss in Mimana Iyar Chronicles and my reaction is, "man, this game is stupid."

[CDFN]

Gee, and I thought this was about JRPGs with clueless protagonists who cannot see plot twists a mile away, airheaded girls who throw themselves at the protagonist no matter how much of a douchebag he is, and plotlines involving the power of love and friendship being the key to the world's salvation.  I'm at the final boss in Mimana Iyar Chronicles and my reaction is, "man, this game is stupid."

That's what I thought too. That's definitely a bigger issue for me when looking at the genre as a whole.

[Starmongoose]

I definitely agree with the notion of JRPG's insulting our intelligence through story and characters rather than by how long it takes to start getting into the action. Everyone knows how long it takes to actually do something other than press X in Persona 4, but that didn't bother me because the characters were funny at times, and the dialogue was cheese-free.

Flash forward to FF XIII and I can see what the problem is, but that was for me, due to poor storytelling. I was fine for just pressing X during battles, it didn't really bother me because I knew it opens up later, however, being thrust into the middle of a story in which you know nothing about and no one bothers to explain it, just throwing around words like Fal'cie and Cie'th like they are the names of your old Aunties that you should have visited, but didn't. THAT was not fun.

[MeshGearFox]

Apostrophes (or as we call them in the biz, "air commas") are annoying when people use them to represent things like glottal stops or other weird shit in fantasy names, but what the hell phonetic purpose are they even TRYING to serve with "Fal'cie"? Theoretically that could be marking palatalization but that doesn't explain Cie'th and I'm not sure Square's smart enough to know what palatalization is, anyway.

[WildArms]

Go play facebook games if you dont like it

[Sagacious-T]

I happen to like facebook games

I guess the whole storyline thing is a valid complaint.

"Go pick flowers so our village can get attacked while you're away"

[WildArms]

I happen to like facebook games

I guess the whole storyline thing is a valid complaint.

"Go pick flowers so our village can get attacked while you're away"

Lol , well i never tried a facebook game o.0, but ive always see ppl playing them, and most of them just look like a lame copy of harvest moon.

Yeah, talking in Topic, in my opinion, i really like nice introductions for games, i know lately ppl say "hey we want to play a game, not watch a movie!" but, personally, i like a well introduced game, makes me want to figure everything out more, and i enjoy the cutscenes.

[MeshGearFox]

Maybe when gamers as a whole start having enough intelligence to insult, IDK.

[Parn]

Apostrophes (or as we call them in the biz, "air commas") are annoying when people use them to represent things like glottal stops or other weird shit in fantasy names, but what the hell phonetic purpose are they even TRYING to serve with "Fal'cie"? Theoretically that could be marking palatalization but that doesn't explain Cie'th and I'm not sure Square's smart enough to know what palatalization is, anyway.

They use apostrophes to increase the pretentiousness of their shitty plot.  Acronyms used to be all the rage, but now it's apostrophes.  If FFXIII let me equip Snow with a Bat'leth and have him yell "KAPLAA!!!!" at the start of every battle, maybe I would have hated him a lot less.

[Hidoshi]

The ancient Apostrophe tribe has migrated from the bowels of AOL and other free chatroom roleplaying dens, and finally settled upon the vast plaines of Japanese gaming development houses.

[Dice]

Gee, and I thought this was about JRPGs with clueless protagonists who cannot see plot twists a mile away, airheaded girls who throw themselves at the protagonist no matter how much of a douchebag he is, and plotlines involving the power of love and friendship being the key to the world's salvation.  I'm at the final boss in Mimana Iyar Chronicles and my reaction is, "man, this game is stupid."

That's what I thought too. That's definitely a bigger issue for me when looking at the genre as a whole.