KYLELASCAR'S PROFILE

Thanks for this interesting piece. I would like to highlight a few aspects with regard to JRPGs, since you mainly wrote about action-oriented games (and I will also write about the non-JRPG RPGs that are one reason why I only play JRPGs nowadays).

Being an advocate of the "one true difficulty dogma", I really don't like it when games feature different difficulty modes, and sometimes this is the sole reason for me to not play the game in question. Since I like to refer to myself as a veteran JRPG player, I'm always compelled to choose the highest difficulty setting. Like you said, it's ridiculous to force this decision on the player at the very beginning without sufficient information.

Two examples: Romancing Monarchy's highest difficulty setting just forces the player to grind a few hours more, and that felt so unrewarding that I switched to the lowest difficulty setting just to get the game over with. Conversely, when it comes to JRPGs made by EXE-Create for Kemco, I know beforehand (from experience) that the highest difficulty setting is the one for me, because it offers higher rewards (more EXP and Gold etc.) and the exact right amount of challenge. Trust and experience can make all the difference when it comes to choosing a suitable difficulty setting. Regrettably, most times higher difficulty setting only means higher enemy stats. There are too few games that offer more interesting takes on how to design a higher difficulty setting (e.g. by granting a boss a new skill only on the highest difficulty setting).

Consequently, I'm not a fan of dynamic difficulty adjustment. Even worse, I don't play JRPGs that resort to level-scaling. What's the point of fighting and leveling up if the player doesn't get (significantly) stronger compared to the monsters? Some JRPGs that utilize level-scaling are even completely broken, effectively preventing high-leveled players from overcoming certain game segments. Even when level-scaling isn't that badly implemented, it ruins the experience for me. Why should I, for example, level up a character in Diablo 2 to level 99 if he - because of the level-scaling - still dies in one hit on the highest difficulty setting? RPGs and dynamic difficulty adjustment just don't mesh, all the more so as JRPGs in particular should always enable the player to choose a "brute force path", for it has always been characteristic of JRPGs that players can use effort to make up for their lack of skill (except for when it comes to the most difficult optional bosses).

Concerning your "ELS", I can live with such an approach as long as the player isn't patronized of forced to abandon his/her playstyle. A positive example would be an optional arena challenge during which the player can't use certain skills or equipment pieces. Ranking systems, on the other hand, tend to annoy me, especially when they're applied to battles. Instead of punishing (or not rewarding) players that don't discover or don't want to use the most broken combos, developers should let the players play how they want to play. I for one don't want to hear "You don't play as intended" or "You could play so much better" all the time. Another issue is that most ranking systems also reward speed, which is incompatible with thorough exploration encouraged by most (good) JRPGs. I still remember that I searched for secret passages in every nook and cranny when I played Wolfenstein for SNES, and that I still couldn't obtain the highest rating simply because it took me too long. Where's the fun in that? Why not offer optional new game plus only challenges instead? Even better: Let the player handle his/her own self-imposed challenges. Maybe I'm getting old, but I think being pressed for time when playing JRPGs isn't fun. The only example of an excellent rating system in a JRPG of which I can think off the top of my hat would be the dungeon completion rating system in Lakria Legends, and even that system wouldn't have been to my liking if the developer had stuck with his original idea of making completion speed part of the rating.

In short, it's a very complex topic. Since I'm a (moderate) completionist and sometimes even a powergamer, and since I also like grinding in general, I forgive most JRPGs for being too easy. On the other hand, I shy away from a game when my completionist/powergamer approach is the bare minimum to beat said game. Balancing is one of the most difficult tasks when developing a JRPG, and I don't envy the developers that need to repeat dozens of boss fights using dozens of different setups just to ensure an enjoyable gaming experience, but I always appreciate it when a developer gets the difficulty just right.

Isn't it wonderful how all these players have all these different tastes? If someone doesn't like battles/grinding and "getting sidetracked", (s)he can play a straight forward adventure game or visual novel instead of a JRPG. I love JRPGs especially because they can combine the best of different genres.

Similar to tastes, there are many different kinds of completionists. Sometimes I even add self-imposed challenges to my playthrough if I somehow benefit from that, e.g. if it motivates me to grind. A recent example would be the excellent RPG Maker MV JRPG Empire. The game features a steal mechanic and a bestiary that shows monster drops as soon as the player got the drop for the first time. I wanted to steal every item from every enemy at least once, and I also wanted to get every monster drop at least once, but there was a problem: Stolen items don't count towards "unlocking" monster drops in the bestiary, so I already had to compromise when it came to enemies that are only fought once (bosses). Since I didn't know if all boss drops were 100 % guaranteed, I went for stealing. Furthermore, the probability of most mob enemy drops is very low (single-digit percentage), even for common items that can be bought at shops. When I had completed all optional stuff, leveled all party members to maximum level and was about to face the final boss, yet still didn't get all monster drops in the final dungeon, I decided to abandon my self-imposed challenge, since it wasn't worth the effort anymore at that point. Apart from that "issue", though, the game is really good.

The bottom line is that every JRPG is different, and I'm rather flexible, so I have to figure out again and again what I want to complete each time, and the same should be true for most JRPG players.

Yeah, Lufia II did a lot of things right. It's never too late to learn from the classics. I also love percentage counts, but I think they aren't really needed as long as a game doesn't feature anything permanently missable. Fortunately, it's much easier these days to find out if one has found everything during one's playthrough.

It really isn't my intention to dictate how JRPGs are made. My article explicitly excludes certain types of games from my dogma, since there are - and should be - different kinds of games for different kinds of tastes. Nevertheless, developers of games that aren't build around permanently missable things should ask themselves: Why do I - as someone who wants the player to enjoy everything the game has to offer - construct this side quest or item to be permanently missable? Nowadays, there are so many games and there is so little spare time, so I doubt any player would like to play through a 10+ hours game again (immediately after the first playthrough) just because he missed a side quest.

Avoiding permanently missable things is simply the best solution for everyone: Those who don't care just don't care (yet still have the opportunity to care later), and those who do care aren't dissatisfied. Again: We are talking about RPG Maker JRPGs, not about AAA or (older) Final Fantasy games. I have to admit, though, that this article wouldn't have been possible without all the interesting permanently missable aspects in the JRPGs I've played so far, but now I'm older and less forgiving. :D