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in reply to @ItsMeLilyV's post:
I thought about this question for like 30 minutes the other day and couldn't come up with a satisfying answer.... I'll have to keep thinking about it 🤔
Yea, it's tricky! I feel like RPGs have gotten harder and harder to define, especially since so many of the elements they're known for are always borrowed by so many other genres.
That's definitely true!
My gut reaction is to say that it's a combination of exploration and story that I find most enticing in JRPGs, but the thing is, I can think of JRPGs I love that don't really have much of a story... and I can think of similar exploration experiences in other genres that haven't grabbed me.
It might be that it's a "whole is more than the sum of its parts" thing for me.
Or else that it's partly that the combination is very familiar after all these decades, so it's kind of a comfort food....
I'm also a but torn because I really enjoy turn based combat, yet combat in general feels so tired and worn out as far as game mechanics go
It's complicated! 😆
Sure! I've been trying to piece out what makes a game "feel" like a JRPG, since so many of the traditional elements are used across several genres (story-heavy, level up systems) and modern JRPGs often drop traditional elements (like turn-based combat).
I like making games that take weird, unique approaches to existing genres, and sometime it's hard to tell what kinds of players they appeal to. For example, my most recent game is a very fast, action-heavy game with no exploration or level ups, but it also has a HUGE focus on character relationships and world building. I can't really call it a JRPG, but it shares some of the same appeal! And when you add games to Steam, you have to add genre tags as well, so it can be important to figure out.
So I was curious what people felt was the biggest draw of JRPGs, since a lot of my future game ideas fall into that weird limbo of JRPG-esque ✨
That makes sense! Thanks for sharing!
The conundrum of "what even is an RPG, let alone any subgenre" just gets more complex as time goes by