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I wanted to see just what kinds of encounters the genre I’d abandoned more than a decade ago now had to offer. The Nintendo 3DS announced itself as the home for such old-school pleasures this spring with the release of Etrian Odyssey IV, Fire Emblem: Awakening, and Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate.
FIRE EMBLEM 8 RANDOMIZER MONSTERS SERIES
So I took up 3 modern variants of the JRPG - one “pure,” one tactical, one action - all from venerable series I had never played. Still, as one who once did endure it and found its pleasures where I could, I have a soft spot for the genre. And once they do become rote enough to mindlessly menu through, why endure the rank monotony at all? JRPGs are too fussy, require too much working memory to keep track of the bloated inventories, the character spreadsheets, the who goes best with what and where. But these aren’t zone-out types of games at least I’m rarely able to play them that way. I understand the appeal of meditative repetition, of ritual. What I’ve never understood, though, is how one can willingly, even delightfully, repeat these encounters hundreds of times within a single game. I sense this is exactly what many JRPG fans love about the genre. If you follow your instructions, know your numbers, and put in your time, victory is inevitable. Predictable, stable, closed systems are what you’ll be administering to keep these scripted battles humming along. It ensures that not even time itself will get in the way of mastering the JRPG’s true heart: its systems. The turn-based version of the random encounter is even further removed from the moment of action. I believe the technical term for this range of activity is “video-game bullshit.” Run into trouble? You can grind levels, farm materials, craft new items, fill out that skill tree, and always, always shop. It provides instead polite repetition, immanently manageable, where there’s no pesky physicality to bog you down, and everything can be overcome eventually with enough preparation and know-how. It is distanced, impersonal, expected, not even interested in true. Of course, this is not what the random encounter of a JRPG offers. It’s not so much the conflict I crave as the chance to encounter something up close and personal, something that pushes back against my will, something unexpected but perhaps also true.
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When people stop being polite and start getting real. The duel, the fierce engagement, the heated conversation, all face-to-face. The screen blurs and in come the patient, turn-taking servants of the Dark Lord. One minute you’re exploring a new continent, right in time with the swell of the overworld theme, poised to plumb the depths of some hidden chasm, when suddenly: breach. But not the one thing that actually took up the most time - the random encounter battles. I could go along with the melodramatic plots, the broad characters, certainly all the maps and amazing music. These were demanding games, consuming games, games that usually required a minimum 40-hour workweek to complete, back before I knew what such time commitments could do to a person.īut even in the JRPG heyday of the ’90s, there was a central element I never liked. Soon after, there was Lunar: The Silver Star, the Evangelion-inspired Xenogears, Final Fantasy IV and VI and VII. Phantasy Star II on the Sega Genesis was the first to completely possess me. I used to love Japanese role-playing games (JRPGs).