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• Your JRPG Narrative is Bad and You Should Feel Bad

  I recently gave up on Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World a scant four hours into my experience for one reason alone: the game was literally stabbing me in the brain with its narrative.  It's not that DotNW's story was exceptionally bad; actually, it was delightfully mediocre, which is really all I can ask for from a JRPG these days.  The biggest problem, you see, is that DotNW's stopped to show me its accursed story about every 5 seconds, like an attention-starved child waving a macaroni art project in my face. "Yes, I see. Very nice. Daddy's trying to play his game now." Listen up, JRPG developers: the stories you're trying to tell?  They aren't necessarily worth telling.  In fact, I can really only name two RPGs in the past decade that've had stories which ranked far above "serviceable:"  Final Fantasy XII, and Mother 3--note that the latter of these two was written by an actual writer.  I may come off as kind of snobbish with this post, though I think that just comes with age; there was a point in my life when I thought RPG plots were totally tubular, but that was back when I was in high school.  Turning into a cranky old man has given me the benefit of perspective; through experiencing a number of excellent narratives (across various media), I've obtained standards that I can't quite drop.  (Also, I need some way to justify my expensive BA.) The problem of lousy narrative is a pretty big hurdle for JRPG developers, but I've taken the liberty of coming up with some easy-to-follow and unsolicited solutions. Read More... Posted Nov 26 2008, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 6 comment(s) Filed under: chrono trigger, mother 3, namco bandai, jrpg, bob mackey, story, tales of, tales of symponia: dawn of the new world, narrative

• Whatcha Playing: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

  I've probably blathered about this before on 61FPS, but the original Tales of Symphonia marks the most time I spent with a game during the last generation of consoles. I spent over 100 hours milking that game for all it was worth, and I don't regret it at all--though, to be fair, at the time I was living at home and only marginally employed.  So when a semi-sequel to one of my favorite games snuck up on me, I had to check it out; and while common sense told me the my disappointment in Tales of Legendia and The Abyss may indicate Dawn of the New World's quality, I decided to pick it up anyway.  (I'm a weak, weak man.) As a sequel to Symphonia, Dawn of the New World is a pretty shameless cash-in full of recycled assets with a decidedly last-gen look. But, in coping with its shamelessness, New World has some interesting qualities; namely, its status as a direct successor to a previous RPG. Outside of stuff like FFX-2, you don't find games like this too often--most RPG sequels usually end up taking place 100 or 1000 years before/after their previously-released games.  Not so with New World; the events of Symphonia are in the not-too-distant past, which actually explains the state of the in-game world.  Turns out that 100-hour quest from Symphonia actually made things worse, and managed to turn Symphonia-protagonist Lloyd into a ruthless killer. Go fig. Read More... Posted Nov 20 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: whatcha playing, namco bandai, jrpg, bob mackey, tales of, tales of symponia: dawn of the new world

• Low-Rent RPGs: A Good Idea

  Tales of Symphonia was how I spent the summer of 2004, and, along with Dragon Warrior VII and Persona 3: FES, is one of the very few games I've spent more than 100 hours playing. I've known for a long time that a sequel to Symphonia would eventually be hitting the Wii--but I must've not been paying attention, because Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World comes out next friggin' month. While I figure out how to take a leave of absence from graduate school, wet your whistle (or any woodwind instruments you have lying around the house) with the official English trailer: I'll say right now that the Tales games have a pretty low batting average; on the whole, about a third of them are worth playing--and out of that third, only a few are truly excellent. I've actually been a bit disappointed with the series since Symphonia; Legendia--despite having what may be the world's greatest RPG soundtrack--was a major step down, and Abyss was fun until my experience was throttled by constant, inescapable load times. I'm still not certain if DotNW will suck on toast, but at least one thing is clear: I dig Namco's approach. Read More... Posted Oct 07 2008, 02:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: wii, retro, namco bandai, jrpg, bob mackey, tales of, tales of symponia: dawn of the new world