JRPGs aren’t necessarily compulsion based. Like Dragon Quest has almost no grind in it, nor does Final Fantasy.
They are games you can choose to grind in, but it’s not necessary to progress.
In addition, even in dungeon crawlers with expectations of grind, like Wizardry or Etrian Odyssey, the games are designed to reward you for smart play in a way that is’t necessarily true of endlessly progressing unlock trees.
Now I can’t say for certain about this Krypt thing in specific, but I can say that well designed JRPGs are very different from the endless grind of many online multiplayer titles, like Overwatch, Battlefront, Fortnight, and the like.
But I will say good JRPGs are district from just being a clicker.
it’s also like comically good at rehabilitating mechanics that MK has actually had for 25 years but which no one regarded as objectively good in the first place like non-QCF supermove inputs and dial-a-combos, all of which actually feel intentional here
I was just thinking yesterday how in the age of micro-transactions and DLC Mortal Kombat technically has over 50 costumes for each characters in the base game (6-7 outfits with around 10 colors each, and this doesn’t count all of the dozens of customization parts for each character) but no particular audience could appreciate that since they unlock at a glacial and mostly random pace. There usually isn’t a way to get the specific costume you want for the specific character you want other than hoping you find it’s chest in the Krypt (if it’s one of those Krypt rewards) or waiting to find a Tower of Time one day that offers it. There game has tons to unlock but you can’t really set your sights on a goal for any of it.
On an unrelated note not only is Shang Tsung voiced by the actor from the film but he looks like him too.
I suppose so, in a modern context where progression loops are weaponized, but there’s a reason every Famicom game post-Dragon Quest started integrating experience and loot loops. RPGs were the first true dark alchemy and I think Tim’s line about ‘training people into obsessive compulsive disorders’ rings true.
Most of the really unhealthy game play patterns we saw prior to MMOs and Facebook and Zynga came from the JRPG spheres, from people working hundreds of hours to beat Emerald and Ruby weapons and the like.
I’d argue that description, as I think the larger effects of roguelike mechanics is to supercharge learning and present varied situations with meaningful consequence (this is why I think the structure might be even more suited to action games than RPG mechanics).
Regardless, I think they were niche enough up through 2010 to have little influence on most people making games and the players; the leakages of their structure were largely seen as interesting failures (Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, and other darlings), excepting Diablo, but that really took the random loot tables into its own world.
Unless you see the path as roguelikes->MUDs->graphical MUDs (Everquest), in which case, yeah, that’s potent, but that hits late 90s, a full fifteen years after everyone learned from Dragon Quest.
Camus here is talking about the meaninglessness of life itself: and precisely the best defense of pursuing meaningless videogame achievements is that all other ambitions are also meaningless
And even Nethack was very much aware of the grind, one of the devs wrote in response to guides on pudding farming (a monster that divides on any damage and every instance has a chance to drop any loot): “The DevTeam has arranged an automatic and savage punishment for pudding farming. It’s called pudding farming.”
(It’s no longer possible in current version to make an even stronger point against it)
Also, RTS games. Civilization, Red Alert, Star Craft, War Craft, all were huge during the PSone JRPG heyday. Not to mention, Diablo 1. There were also some flares out there like Starsiege Tribes, Which were ahead of their time and had highly dedicated communities.
I’m indicting roguelikes in terms of teaching extremely unhealthy gameplay patterns. JRPGs(aside from Tower of Druaga and the games it influenced) were largely innocent of this until the PSX era because they were naturally constrained small-scale (by today’s standards) works. Indeed, the only post DQ game you referenced was Final Fantasy VII. That came out the same year as Ultima Online, and between the two I would say UO had a far more noxious influence on game design trends (even as an avowed liker of UO, no game does grind like Ultima Online did)
how is stone soup a salve to RPG compulsiveness? People play the game over and over compulsively, even when the game plays itself (MiBe), they will sit there tapping o to win.
