memo

fyi: SMT and Persona based their combat system on weak points way earlier than P5. I'm not saying it is immune to criticism, but it's a series standard by now

A good chunk of comments have spoilers, so if you read this first beware. I guess people like to brag about game knowledge more than they like having other people experiencing stuff.

The Final Fantasy series has many loved entries in which recurring characters, archetypes and items make a looping comeback. It is very fun to see how different those elements are handled in different entries. They just need to step back and realize not every FF needs to be a game that pushes its platform to its hardware limit. That may have worked well for them up to the PS2 era, but it's not a thing anymore. You don't need extreme ultra realistic eye twitching for your game to be grandiose.

To be fair, emulation and patching is even improving on late 90s to early 10s console games. Sure, you can't evade hardware limitations, but having, for example, ps2 games not slowing down on a CRT with weird motion blur and giving you a big headache makes for an already much more compelling experience.

Right now square enix has a very loved cast: by giving us a strong narration they could keep things very interesting even if the storyline is not as grandiose as previous entries. Sadly being the WoL truly makes it feel like I am too much of a main character in a world in which I'd rather not be one, idk if that makes sense

fellers never heard of a mmorpg

Thank you! Pretty much everything suggested, I've added; I knew about CrossCode, yet completely forgot about it.

Thank you! Indeed, Trails in the Sky has been on my backlog for a while and for good reason, from what I hear. I remember looking at screenshots for the subsequent series like Trails of Cold Steel and generally it was a turnoff starting from the art/design direction.

In this regard, I think that Persona 5's success in recent years is both a blessing and a curse: blessing, because it showed how JRPGs don't have to be action oriented to be beautiful; curse because Atlus surely realized, already back with Persona 4, that the high school setting somehow seemed successful, thus somehow suggesting to the industry that it is a good model to follow.

Oh, I just looked at a wiki for the upcoming game (already out in JP) Trails Through Daybreak and it seems like the cast is at least balanced between teenagers and adults! I'm more than okay with this if written nicely and without creepy/disturbing tropes.

This! I mean, if we take a well-known and loved example, Goku is 18 by the time the first Dragon Ball series ends up, while being around 23 at the start of Dragon Ball Z. Also, I don't think it's bad to have a teenager as the main character once in a while, but we have to admit that it happens a little too often and in dubious way in japanese media in general. That's because this whole thing sadly has a market, and it's ever-expanding too, as @[email protected] said.

Fair question! After I grew up to around 21/22 years old, I felt like I had a harder time resonating with young teens in JRPGs: coming of age stories can be a bit.. dull at times, it's common in JRPGs to take someone quite immature and make them grow up as they save the world; more often than not there's also either awkward/creepy tropes in many of those that make the game and the characters much less appealing or straight up uncomfortable to me.

I guess I would genuinely prefer to spend my time on media starring adults while still remaining in the genre of JRPGs.

Yeah, 3 is moody but I think that makes for more meaningful social links sometimes. Tbh they are all different enough and imo this is why they're all decent

This. It even has a built-in CRT filter if you're into that. You can definitely feel the inspiration from Silent Hill/Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Dead Space, and even some Evangelion in its artistic direction.