A common refrain I hear is “I have no clue what is happening, but the game is fun”. Did Japanese game writers just drink massive amounts and throw shit at the wall? :D
I don’t think there’s a single JRPG that I can remember the actual plot except the general gist.
Or is there some strange cultural reason these games had labyrinthe writing and just strange plots?
Maybe a JRPG historian can shed some light on this?
Depends on the game, I have played a few but most are straightforward plot wise. A lot of the writing is constrained due to file size in a lot of cases, the story can also suffer due to character writing being pretty shallow.
That’s not to say there aren’t some stand outs but the 90’s is a bit of a mixed bag. Cool ideas a plenty but the writing doesn’t always hold up.
I’m also a battle systen/mechanics nerd and that’s where I would get more of the fun when I find the story less engaging.
Writing is more constrained in simple fact that, well, they’re video games! The medium involves someone interacting with it. A good story is like a side dish: It compliments the main course (in this case that’s core gameplay loops).
I think in a lot of cases this is down to non-writers writing stuff, as many games didn’t have professional writers work on them. Can non professional writers write good stuff? Yes! Can professional writers write utter crap? Yes!
Look at it like me being an electronics hobbiest tasked with fixing a car, or a janitor tasked with fixing a roof. Not the ideal type of person for the job.
I would say System Shock and the original Marathon trilogy prove you could have better writing but they do cheat making heavy use of logs. It in itself a clever way of working around the constraints.
True, deadlines for translators also factor into the mix.