Honestly the writing often felt a lot better when it was simpler combined with no voice acting. The convolution combined with the voice acting really makes a lot of modern jrpgs just impossible to bear.
There’s so much more your brain fills in when playing the older DQ titles. There’s maybe 100 lines of dialog in the first Monsters game, but holy shit did my imagination run wild.
I honestly think RPGs should by default have no voice acting. That should be the standard. Voice acting just so heavily constrains the writing, and bogs down the development. Writers can’t just write as much bullshit as they want because every single line has to take up time in a fucking studio.
Pre-BOTW Zelda has my favourite implementation. You get a few soundbites that give a good impression what their voice would sound like and little more.
You could say Yaldabaoth, though I was more thinking of the politician guy because Yaldi is kind of an asspull who IIRC only shows up about 5 minutes before the boss fight.
Anyway, my point is that while I think Persona has some decent writing (the pyramid dungeon is probably the best?), the overall story is actually pretty lackluster and it feels a lot more like 5 different things stitched together.
Well presumably if they were on a shorter dev cycle the games would be shorter by necessity, thereby cutting down on the bloat and length.
There is no saving JRPG writing, sadly.
Honestly the writing often felt a lot better when it was simpler combined with no voice acting. The convolution combined with the voice acting really makes a lot of modern jrpgs just impossible to bear.
There’s so much more your brain fills in when playing the older DQ titles. There’s maybe 100 lines of dialog in the first Monsters game, but holy shit did my imagination run wild.
I honestly think RPGs should by default have no voice acting. That should be the standard. Voice acting just so heavily constrains the writing, and bogs down the development. Writers can’t just write as much bullshit as they want because every single line has to take up time in a fucking studio.
The massive success of Baldur’s Gate 3 and Clair Obscur Expedition 33 has me worried about this lol
Animal crossing/star fox system is the way to go. The character gets a handful of chirps and one or two unique ones to really sell a big scene.
Pre-BOTW Zelda has my favourite implementation. You get a few soundbites that give a good impression what their voice would sound like and little more.
Another thing soiled by half the population being only semi-literate.
Heeeeey come on some jrpgs have great stories!
OK maybe FF7s writing is… Rough in some places but the story? It’s good.
Mother 3? Fabulous story. Inspired one of the most popular current indie RPGs
Persona 5? Problematic in some areas but the overall story was good!
Quick, who was the main villain and what did he want to actually do?
ummm umm can I say Yaldabaoth? Do I have to say Maruki?
Aaaa OK you win -_- The ending of Royal stinks
You could say Yaldabaoth, though I was more thinking of the politician guy because Yaldi is kind of an asspull who IIRC only shows up about 5 minutes before the boss fight.
Anyway, my point is that while I think Persona has some decent writing (the pyramid dungeon is probably the best?), the overall story is actually pretty lackluster and it feels a lot more like 5 different things stitched together.