JRPGs … the not so great stuff imho

As per his usual great habits Razvan gave me today another awesome link: Ten golden rules of Japanese RPGs. I can’t say I’ve played that many JRPGs but from those that I did play I must say that some of these rules were the problems for me that made me avoid some of them. Take for example Digital Devil Saga 2 with a fighting screenshot to the right: amazing story, superb setting, some brilliant concepts, interesting leveling up grid… all ruined for me and leaving me frustrated because I never could finish it: just when I thought I was getting near (again) I found I was super-super-super under the level I needed to be, having wasted a lot of time having to level up characters I was hoping to ignore and facing annoying random battles and level grinding. So I can really relate to the article for example in this section:

No JRPG can truly call itself complete without having an end dungeon packed so full of the toughest monsters that it requires an additional twenty hours of "gameplay" just to get through the first screen. When the final furlong approaches, the game technically screeches to a halt, and what ensues is a magical new game where one runs around the same spot in circles, then presses attack a lot, and then runs around in circles again. For days.

PS: am I against JRPGs? No way!!! Some of them have the most brilliant concepts, amazing attention to detail, superb mature approaches and ways of thinking… it’s just that it’s so annoying that to get to all this brilliant stuff you must do a kazillion little annoying things.