So Kotaku has been doing a bang up job of writing shit that absolutely no one asked for and making a lot of Claims(tm) that make little to no sense, which is very par for them if I'm being honest, but their recent piece on RPGs REALLY put me a way and so we're on Cohost. Keep in mind this is after Japanese devs said they didn't want to be referred to as JRPGs-an article that even I was like 'well that seems silly.' Oh god, do I get it now. So thanks for that, Kotaku, I guess.
It was immediately after this raging dumpster fire that YouTube recommended me deep dives on DQ as a series, and simultaneously Paul started getting ads for Let's Plays of Parasite Eve. So we skimmed some lists and played the Parasite Eve OST for Christmas. It was great!
A video came up talking about how games have lost their 'chill'-not as in they're out of control, but literally. It helped me fill several gaps at once that answered why this article frustrated me so heavy:
The RPG genre isn't dying and P5 didn't save it; the RPG genre is being choked out via a desire for more action, more gratification, and less of the slow burn.
Being denied a chance to thrive is not the same as your genre dying; the chill video helped me see that. It went in depth about how there was a time, an era some may say, where the point of creating video games was the whimsy. The nonsense. The 'fuck it, why not.' We got mountains of publicized and known RPG content because it was allowed to BE RPG content. Late 90s and early 2000s was lush with Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasies, Shadow Hearts, Breath of Fires, Dark Clouds, Wild Arms, Radiant Historias, Golden Suns, Fire Emblems; we saw no shortage of games where your job as a player was to navigate this fuckface loser of a MC into a life where they got swole, learned some shit, saved a world or two, maybe punched a god.
It was meant to be consumed gradually, the pace was intentionally slow. The reason you invested was for story and when it came to combat, that was where absurdity shined. There were no limits on magic spells and 'what could work', no one said 'you technically can't summon that, it's a Greek deity and your character is distinctly Spanish', it didn't have to be 500% accurate: your main character may have amnesia and be the most badass vigilante in the world, you could be immortal trying to figure out what the fuck the humans did this time, you could be the most beautiful agent of death, plummeting to the Earth with the dark and dreadful endgoal of delivering humans from their mortal coil, just for their souls to join you in battle against unjust and unreasonable gods. And sometimes you're just a goofy looking kid with big ass clown shoes swinging a 'keyblade'-a literal sword fashioned like a fucking key, that opens doors not by inserting the key but by pointing to it very cheekily and watching as a laser beam shoots out of your key to open the door that has a keyhole but is not being opened conventionally using a key. Also Mickey Mouse put you up to this. Maybe you were fighting in the war but it doesn't change the fact that you also fought in the war and had 9 jobs to do it, hired some random chemist woman to join you and watched as she grew from slinging bottles to touching grass and choking a bitch out with it. You didn't become a pokemon trainer overnight: you tirelessly caught mon after mon and then you reveled in beating the shit out of some gym nerd and said 'come off that badge' then as your exhausted fighting fatales rest you ran into the forest to find...another one. Maybe a shiny one this time.
It was grandeur.
It was nonsensical.
It was extravagant.
And most importantly: it was fun because of it.
The video (I will try to find it) didn't focus on just RPGs to be clear-their opening piece was about Skate 3, and how they just wanted a game like it again where we didn't need all the extra-he just wanted to do some sick jumps. That's it. he didn't care how realistic it looked. he didn't care if it was accurate to the top skaters of the year. He wanted pike and air, and that was all. SSX Tricky would be proud.
RPGs aren't and never were dying. But they are being severely overshadowed by the AAA need and desire to make every game they create into an action blockbuster, game edition, and it shows.
P5 didn't 'save' the genre-these games were and have still been getting made. They were just squandered severely by the over-abundance of hyper realistic RPGs.
In 2016 we had titles like the Odin Sphere reboot, SMT IV, DQ Builders, Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, Tales of Beseria, I Am Setsuna, The Technomancer, Grim Dawn, Tyranny, Banner Saga 2, XCOM 2-and that's to name a FEW. But you know what else came out that year that made much more noise?
Dark Souls 3.
Fallout 4 DLC.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
Final Fantasy XV.
The only one that was a massive budget game that still appealed to that whimsy even remotely was a World of Warcraft expansion.
But the trends start making themselves. We can see the pattern of 'RPG, but make it realistic. Make it gritty. If we can see every follicle of fur on Dogmeat don't fucking ship it. I need the radiance of that plate brighter, now. The combat needs to be fast paced, because that's exciting-we're done taking our time-adapt or die.' It's not to say that these games aren't fun, don't misunderstand.
But we have to start earnestly talking about how the need to be The Next Blockbuster is clouding the landscape. Our jobs afford us the agency to be little shitty goblins that do extremely weird fucking things in the name of a design and after we're done Charlie-splaining our idea, point to the whiteboard and go 'but there is a start and a finish, so no matter how absurd it sounds, it still makes sense.' Turning a bunch of fuckfoolery and nonsense into a fantastical and loveable journey is our job.
If the author of the Kotaku article wanted to talk about how 'man, it really sucks that RPGs as a genre really isn't getting the love it used to, and a lot of that stems from C-suite execs and western culture in general wanting high budget, flashy, realistic games that take 7+ years to make when the genre as a whole has a mountain of potential and life still pumping in it' I'd been all over it. Yup, you right, let's make smaller and more fun games again, or hell let's make a big game that doesn't have to look like a photo on my wall. They instead said P5 'saved' the genre. As though all these other games didn't exist. Which speaks significantly more to
- the author, despite writing for a gaming culture magazine, has an extremely narrow scope on all the games within the RPG genre
- the author, while writing for a gaming culture magazine, is noticing that the RPG genre as a whole is pushing much more towards the large scale, blockbuster-esque, realistic, and action driven approach for its games and that's super disappointing because RPG can be literally anything
- both
We saw this in literal 4K with Final Fantasy XVI-the same devs who said JRPG is a pejorative.
Square-Enix took a franchise that for almost FOURTY YEARS held firm on an idea of what FF was: slow burn, rich story-telling, beautiful and frankly outrageous visuals, a banging OST, and the player having the agency to take their party (who also had agency) and load them up with magic, with items, summons, and spells. Characters were humans, or rodent-adjacent, or rabbits, or hell a half-espyr. Maybe your character has a gun for a hand, I don't know. Or maybe your headmaster could be related to Oga Garra. Oh there's also a small child with a horn that is 40x more powerful than you, a black mage that isn't human (we don't know what it is tbh), and.....whatever Quina Quen is. Maybe you'll play soccer UNDERWATER. Maybe you'll play cards with spirits-you get the point. It was capable of having interesting, mature (and sometimes relatable!) storytelling while also not taking itself entirely too seriously. It was colorful, it was bright, the party members grew together, figuratively and literally. It was like an advanced coloring book, with those bonus fold out pages.
And then they made FF XVI, and said on record with their chest that they were throwing this very functional and still profitable formula and flipping it on it's head in the hopes of appealing to a global audience. A lot of people wrote this off as normal: FF changes all the time, why was this different? Well:
- mature, aka dark, gritty, oh and only humans are allowed (but not Black ones I AM NEVER GETTING OVER THIS)
- party members aren't a thing anymore after, and I cannot stress this enough, ALMOST FOURTY YEARS of having them
- the color palette and aesthetic is flat, which is frankly impressive after FF XII
- lack of flexibility for the player-summons are limited to one person, spells are ?????
- nothing in the game makes you feel like you and your crew are badasses, just...you
- and yes we have to mention there is no turn-based combat.....but I feel this point just becomes an unfair punching bag for many
And that's not 'just A Bitter RPGer Who Didn't Get What They Wanted': those are valid complaints. Valid complaints that no one wanted to hear because 'but Devil May Fantasy fun though'-yea, Devil May Cry/Fantasy is fun, we never said otherwise. Tales of as a series does a fantastic job of blending action oriented combat while giving you, the player, agency, direct cause-and-effect leveling, a chance to see everyone in your team grow and learn, while handling heavy and mature in a fashion that doesn't make you feel like you're being beaten over the head with it. It's colorful, it's bold, everyone has an actual personality, and sometimes they even clash!
If you want introspection of why 'RPGs are dying' this is your case study, in the flesh. Square isn't the only company looking to 'appeal to more audiences'-it's why the chill video really hit home: for many, RPGs are a place of comfort, of relaxation, of reading a book but getting to be 'involved' in the progress of said book, at your own pace. We no longer get the luxury of roaming around and just fucking off without some NPC telling you 'hey you need to play the game' every two minutes. You don't get to watch your character actually grow into the super potent badass over time because fifteen minutes in you already had a super flashy swishy shooshy sword and 45 minutes in you were already doing god battles. Sure, it has that grandeur down packed. But the whimsy is...nowhere. There is no fun side quest to do that has you just chugging shitty drinks because why not. There is no levity in the story at any point: in many of the games I listed there is always SOMETHING to take that edge off. We can save the world-after I'm done fishing. Ultimecia has to die for sure, but this ghost down the hall is absolutely coming off these Triple Triad cards first. I think back to how in Dragon Quest XI you literally have to jump back in time, knowingly destroying a timeline, to save your friends and hold the knowledge that you are essentially Trunks, no one will understand that, if you try to explain it the timeline will re-fuck itself, SOOOOOOOOO I guess we're gonna hit these slots rq, maybe smack up some metal slimes. Let's fill out our monster book! The current wave of realism driven, fast-paced, constantly moving you forward action RPGs are a distinct pull from all the things that RPG as a genre has to offer. That's not killing the genre-it's making it stagnant and replicable for profit.
You have been able to save the world, while being in high school, or hanging with your frog friend, or arguing with a druid, or asking an oversized lizard to pickpocket something for you. Saying you (the Kotaku author) opted to not engage any of those things because you waited for P5 after you beat P4 Golden isn't the vibe. XCOM is a RPG that delivers fun tactical combat, interesting characters, interesting ways to DEVELOP and CREATE characters (insofar that people will literally stop playing if certain people wipe), kicks it with weird aliens, upgrades weird tech shit that will never exist in our lives, adhere to a style that doesn't look like I can count the pores on someone's face, all while still addressing a plot point of 'so the world is kinda at war and we losing-ish kinda and we need to maybe not do that.' It gives you that mature tone, respects you as a player intellectually, respects your time as a real person, is great to look at over time, and still provides you levity via barks, remarks, and team commentary. In FFXVI, it always felt very GO GO GO GO, STORY DUMP YOU CATCH ALL THAT TOO BAD GO GO GO, ok here is your overly detailed boss fight where you press a few buttons to make a movie proc, ok GO GO GO GO-which works really well for a Bayonetta or a DmC. But in a RPG, where I am playing a ROLE, I want to feel like I'm actually playing said role, fleshing out that story and journey, and not like I'm in that scene of The Bear where I just found out I'm firing 76 beefs or that I'm no longer expo because I did not react fast enough.
Look: if you made it this far, thanks. It's a lot of thoughts.
But this just didn't sit right on my spirit.
Claiming P5 saved a genre is....look, I have my platinum in P5, P5R, am working on my platinum in P5 Tactica. I say this as someone who loves the game(s).
P5 did not save anything or anyone.
It just helped remind us that 'RPG' is not 'realistic people game', it's 'role playing game.'
We can literally do whatever we want to with it, and it seems like a weird choice to say 'let's only focus on realism with a linear quest, no variability in party or a lot of the execution, and as flashy combat as we can muster. We'll add a story at some point but it's not the driver.'
It also just unfortunately exposed loudly why Japanese devs don't want the label.
Westerners have done a great job demonstrating on what they meant by 'the term feels derogatory'-because there is also a conversation to be had in how this author penned a piece that has an undertone of JRPGs saved the RPG genre, which disrespects the entire genre as it is, and Western devs getting Very Upset about that because they don't want to hear how maybe devs that aren't from the US are cookin'.
There is a reason DQ continues to be one of the best selling RPGs in the market, and they've never once leaned into action hybrids, making characters look like real people, or shoe-horning you into doing the story as fast and as much as possible. Hell, the soundtracks are almost the same each time minus a few variations. Toriyama's namesake carries because we COULD talk about the outdated tropes and styles he's still using. And yet they still opt to release on Saturdays to allow people time to enjoy the game rather than call off of work, call out sick, or run home from school. DQ AND Persona are showing at a AAA level what indies have been telling us: RPGs are for the stories and the journeys first and foremost. P5 did that magnificently. DQ stays being SHE. Sea of Stars, Chained Echoes, and In Stars and Time are right there demonstrating this entire piece, and to insinuate that they wouldn't have performed nearly as well without P5 existing is honestly: an insult.
Baldur's Gate 3 took the world by storm because they weren't afraid to say 'bring in the aliens, bring in the absolute zanny spells, let people get thrown off cliffs as a strategy, romance a woman with horns coming out of her head. Let the teammates fight. Let the teammates make out. The shopkeep is a smartass because of course she is. Have some mini games! Is it a quest? Is it a time waster? Who knows and who cares, because you want to do it anyway; but also watch as your characters grow, and you understand their journeys, as much as you understand your own. Also there is a space squid trying to kill you.'
P5 didn't shine because 'oh it's a JRPG' (and no the author never FORMALLY said that but...they are saying that)-it's because they understood the assignment.
An assignment that many Western devs are desperate to insist was drastically different, somehow, than the assignment we've been given, as we all look around at each other's homework and see About The Same Picture, reckoning with the idea that while yes our parents have more than enough money to put us in this school that maybe we copied the wrong person's work.
as someone who’s just started BOTW, there’s a lot of whimsy there! all of the koroks, the little shrines, and the “get bugs for this kid” quests make it loveable.
it’s the exploration of possibility that matters. the role doesn’t have to be you or an accurate (or less accurate) self-insert. the “role” in role-playing game is the role that you play, and it should be fun.
not even necessarily MCU’s “character quips per hour” type of fun, but some sort of “this is a game, you can take your time”
