My Secret Life as a JRPG Failure Part 1

If you follow me at all on Twitter, Facebook, or Raptr you probably know I love Japanese music, anime, manga, and yes, Japanese videogames, especially JRPGs. I love those games, but I'm ashamed to admit that I hardly ever finish them. I don't think this is entirely my fault. I think part of the reason for my lack of stamina is that in reality, Japanese gamemakers hate their players. It almost seems like they want to punish you for reaching the end of their game. I don't know what this is really about. Maybe some gamemakers are so engrained with old arcade ideas. Old gamemakers didn't want you to finish a game. They wanted you to keep on coming back day after day to waste your money on an impossible quest to finish their game.

I guess we should start back at the beginning with my embarrassing problem. And might as well start with the first big JRPG that first hit the states back in 1990 and the first JRPG I ever played. It was Final Fantasy on the NES. I remember really loving it, but when I got to the end of the game there was this maze and whichever way I went I ended back where I began. Remember, this was before the internet so I was basically just stuck. I had sunk all those hours and hours into it, defeating monstrous creatures and humans with powerful magic, and there I was, defeated by a looping maze. It still haunts me. I have it on PSP, but have never replayed the game. I'm sure I could find the answer to the maze dilemma now in a few seconds but have never tried.

I played a few RPGs on the Sega Genesis, but don't really remember if I finished them or not. I distinctly remember playing Phantasy Star III, but it's kinda fuzzy. Most of the games I played after the Genesis were PC games. I was playing stuff like Duke Nukem, Tomb Raider, Heroes of Might and Magic, Doom, and Quake. I did play an RPG on PC, a little game called Baldur's Gate by a little company named Bioware.

I didn't really get my hands on another JRPG until I bought a PS2 in 2004. One of the games I bought with it was Final Fantasy X.  I really enjoyed the game and again sunk hours and hours and hours into it but when I finally got to the end boss, I was destroyed, and the final boss still had like a kazillion hit points. I gave up.

I think after that I played Dot Hack Infection and again, I made it all the way to the FINAL BOSS, and again, was just annihilated. I gave up. The thing is with Dot Hack and FFX, I would look up on the internet how to defeat the bosses and they would be mentioning weapons I had never heard of, character levels I wasn't even close to, and amounts of healing potions I didn't have enough money to buy. I think a lot of these weapons were attained after you picked up Chocobo turds or something else equally as pointless.

Up next was Final Fantasy III on DS. Got to the end boss battle again, and then found out that boss was just a warm-up after I for once kicked his ass, and then the final final boss killed my entire party, only to find out it was SUPPOSED to kill me and all my party. So then you were reincarnated and had to fight all the bosses you had defeated previously in the game, and then some new boss-type characters and of course, there wasn't a save in all this, so again I gave up because after I had defeated the final boss that wasn't the final boss and then was killed by the final boss that WAS the final boss I had to face a series of near final boss level bosses and then took on the final final boss again, who totally fucking destroyed my party again, but this time it was the final death.

And then there was Ys Seven. I really loved that game and really had no trouble along the way with any enemies. I almost thought it was TOO easy. Anyway, got to the final boss who again was not the final boss who I defeated only to face the final boss in a final showdown, which happened to not be a final showdown because the battle was really many showdowns with my party broke up into different teams and you weren't allowed to save between each phase. The thing that made this final final battle so awesome was that you had three members on your team. Unfortunately, while you are fighting for your life against the boss, your other two AI controlled characters are busy dicking with themselves and are no help at all. I would get through the first stage but have no health potions left for the the second phase (I think there are four stages all together). So again, I gave up.

Which brings me to my latest maybe failure, Record of Agarest War. It's a really cool little retro JRPG with HD voiced story scenes but isometric sprite battles. You start off with a hero and his pals in a storyline, and then each generation after that follows his descendants. I really love the epicness of it. I've faced some challenges along the way, and made a few shortcuts by purchasing some weapons and armor from the Xbox Live Marketplace. But the last boss on the third generation is presenting some difficulty. I think he has about 50,000 hit points. He's by himself and I have 6 party members so you think I would be able to take him down. But he has some powerful area attacks. The problem with the game is that your most powerful attacks are only available after a character is heavily damaged. So if you hold back characters in reserve and keep them from getting attacked they don't earn enough power to use their special attacks. But if you attack with everyone, the boss, named Midas, just uses these area attacks/spells that will kill your entire party within two rounds.

From what I've gleaned from forums, Midas seems to be one of, if not THE, hardest bosses in the game. My question, why do you put the hardest boss in the MIDDLE of the game? Is this a message from the JRPG gods telling me "Sesho, you are a loser who will never win"? Should I hang my head in shame and scurry off to my Duke Nukem Forever? I say thee nay. I do not believe in grinding. It's so boring. I believe that grinding should occur as a natural part of the game on the way to where you're going. I don't think it's something you should have to set out purposefully to do. If a game is designed well, like Ys Seven was until the last battle, it can offer the challenge of a JRPG without the frustration.

Here's the last battle of the 3rd Generation by a winner (Obviously not me)



So am I going down to defeat, crying rivers after playing this game for 98 hours? No, I'm gonna beat this game the old fashioned way. I'm going buy some downloadable stuff from Xbox Live. For $10, you can buy 10,000 stat points that you can distribute in any way you see fit. For instance you could give a character 10,000 strength points which I would HOPE would make him practically invincible. I don't know, maybe there's a limit to the amount of stat points you can have in any one category. I'm thinking about putting all the points on one character and making them like an avenging angel for every past defeat I've ever suffered in a JRPG. If only there was a way to port the character into all those other games that pummeled me to the ground and made me weep on my game controller. I don't want to use that character the whole game. I just want to get past this wall. Maybe I'll just give one of the characters 2000 strength. I think the highest amount of stat points I have on any one category for a character right now is like 150.

I do have some positive experiences with finishing JRPGs. Well, I have TWO good memories. The first JRPG that I ever finished was Eternal Sonata on the Xbox 360. Wow, what a beautiful game. The other was Dragon Quest IX  on DS, but I had to do some grinding, but it wasn't so bad after I found out about the metal slimes and how you could get a ton of experience points from defeating them.

I'm going to continue these thoughts in Part 2 of "My Secret Life as a JRPG Failure". I really wanted to get into why Japanese game developers want to punish you for reaching the end of their game. The things that really piss me off about JRPGs, and the things I really love. I also wanted to talk about how Western RPGs like Mass Effect in some ways leave current JRPGs in the dust.

Oh, and I guess I can also throw in Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion, a non-JRPG, as another example of my failure. But for totally different reasons. I reached the last boss battle on that game as well, but quit mainly because it was so boring. After shutting all of the Oblivion gates, which are so tedious, I thought I could roam around and just do different missions and then tackle the last boss whenever I felt like it. WRONG, more oblivion gates keep on popping up until the last battle is over. At that point, I just threw my arms up in the air and said "fuck it". Such is life.