I mean I personally love anime stuff and I’m a major Touhou fan but I know how tightly associated an anime aesthetic is with sexualized children. And a lot of people feel icky when it comes to that and I don’t really blame them. The Persona series is one of my favorite things of all time and yet there’s a ton of weird gross stuff in it. Sexualized teenagers, a romantic relationship with an adult teacher, etc. I guess I’ve just been numb to it since it’s so prevalent in anime styled media.
Whereas Expedition 33 has adult characters who act like adults, which is kinda rare for this style of game. So in all, I don’t really blame people for steering clear of anime aesthetic JRPGs yet enjoying games of a similar genre with adult characters. Also consider how Final Fantasy 7 is so beloved and also portrays adults (except Yuffie I guess).
Yeah, I’ve enjoyed Persona, I beat 5 twice. But before even seeing this discourse I commented to friends how nice it is to have a good RPG game about adults having adult feelings and having adult problems (for the most part, obviously Maelle is still a teenager). There aren’t enough video games in general with that dynamic, but especially turn-based RPGs. So, that alone makes E33 refreshing.
I actually think a lot of it is simply that many adult Westerners just bounce right off anything anime or anything overtly Japanese-styled in general. They just don’t vibe with it and they find it annoying, melodramatic and cringy, reacting kind of the same way an average Western moviegoer would react to a Bollywood movie
I mean I could go into any anime themed shop and within milliseconds I could find images of schoolgirls flashing their underwear. I’ve been to Akihabara in Tokyo a bunch of times and the weird horny aspects of the scene comingle everywhere. Like to the point I would not go to Akihabara if I took family to Japan. And I mean it’s definitely gotten more mainstream in the past 15 years like with Persona being massively popular, anime like MHA and Demon Slayer. But to people who are still outside to the scene they’re still gonna see weird sexualized stuff very quickly.
That’s something very endemic to anime/manga and it’s a massive barrier for a lot of very reasonable people. And yeah there’s probably a lot of unfounded sentiment where they unfairly dismiss the entire aesthetic as cringe and childish, but there’s a lot of reasonable people who are turned away by the frankly weird horny vibes and I simply can’t blame them.
E33 looks and feels like an Assassin’s Creed game but with Persona gameplay and parries. I can see why it becomes the Eminem of RPGs when it has photo realistic characters that aren’t in highschool and enemies that don’t look like knockoff pokemon.
Not meaning that to talk shit against JRPGs but I can see how this could be a lot of people’s first turn based RPG of that ilk.
feels like an Assassin’s Creed game
wild take to me, I could not agree with this less
I mean the dialogue sections specifically. It looked the way the late AC games let you talk to people. I don’t mean E33 having like parkour or anything
Late AC games are basically all Witcher 3 knockoffs with less
Nothing against E33, which I understand to be a very good game, but this is such an old meta where cutscenes make something “a good game” or “real art” to complete fucking philistines who have no interest in the medium of games.
I personally enjoy E33 but I can’t forgive that it’s full of Fr*nch people saying honhon and waving baguettes around.
To be fair, most games are worthless consumer slop. So that is kinda true though.
Japan has still kind of maintained some semblance of creative integrity with their AAA titles, outside of nintendo
Oh yeah, the indy space is vibrant and lovely here too. Just like you find a Gamer and his loves lootboxes and waifus you know.
the cognitive dissonance of someone who will say video games are a “stupid waste of time”, then in the same breath say they look forward to mindlessly watching something instead.
I think the sentiment might be that video games are a stupid waste of time because most of them have very low artistic merit and very poor writing when compared to novels or movies. I love video games and I’ll admit there are like 12 games ever with good writing.
Fair, I could understand that. I was taking the perspective that any sort of interactive play would be less of a waste than just watching video. To each their own tho, I wasn’t trying to yuck someone’s yum, and I apologize for doing so.
I personally do enjoy a good cut scene and tend to play games on the easier difficulty because I do like the interactive movie aspect of some games. I’m in it because I like video and video games.
Wrong.
Care to elaborate?
K, sorry. Was partaking i a 90 minute cutscene in Metal Gear Solid 4. Couldn’t speak and ruin the moment.
You’re wrong because watching video isn’t inherently mindless.
Absolutely not.
I really hate that this game became a boring topic about this. Like from the second i saw it announced it was so clear that this game was obviously inspired by more modern SE titles mixed weirdly well with more western sensibilities which i think worked out strangely well. Its just a boring video game discussion where the best option is to just ignore it and talk around it.
Anyone who dismisses the merits of a story because of its medium is an idiot. Full stop.
You hate jrpgs because “its just menu simulators not actiony ahh”
I hate a lot jrpgs because the devs love 0 mp PHYSICAL ATTACKs that deals more damage than 2000 mp spells and LOVES boss that are immune to status effects.
We are not the same.
(Jrpgs where non healing spells are OP are good tho)
Classic RPG strategy of “just basic attack and heal afterwards” works too often, even when playing the game in fast forward
I like jrpgs but the truth is I just prefer crpgs and western rpgs and end up mostly playing those instead.
Like I would “probably” enjoy my time with Metaphor or Persona but in the end I would rather spend that time on something like Pathfinder:WoTR or Baldurs Gate 3
wait which tweet is “shit like this”?
probably the
first game i ever played where i looked forward to the cutscenes
Ive liked some JRPGs but I wouldn’t consider any that ive played at least to be particularly ‘mature’. Usually cause they’re aimed at teenagers
i thought baldur’s gate 3 coming out and sweeping all the awards made people stop thinking that shit
Theres just something off about the way blue checks talk about games or really anything.
The kind of person that says this is also the kind of person that twirls whisky around a glass and pretentiously pretends they’re deeply cultured by talking about how woody the taste of the swill they’re pretending to like is.
Rec me some turn based jrpgs no indie slop plz
Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy 6 and 7.
Super Mario RPG
Arc the lad: twilight of the spirits
