Indies Redefining the JRPG | HitPoint JRPG Podcast

[@lain11644]

We need to start a petition for Derek to play Nier Automata. That game is such a rare breed.

[@jb0258]

Some of my favorite games in recent years have been indies. Hollow Knight, Bug Fables, Chained Echoes, Eiyuden Chronicle, Blasphemous, Sea of Stars. So many amazing indies games! Not just great games, but some of the best jrpg's and metroidvania's I have ever played.

[@SuperDerek]

Truly, we've got a bright future ahead of us. We've talked at length before about it, but indies are one of the last remaining spaces where developers can actually experiment and evolve the genre and take risks.

[@Off_Grid_Gaming]

The Messenger! So good.

[@EriesAston]

Chained Echoes is one of the best indie JRPGs in recent memory

[@VanitasSentiment13]

My absolute favorite Western style JRPG has to go to Chained Echoes. That game hooked me for a few months with its game play and progression system. I hope we get more likes it

[@Lukeormaybenath]

This is such a greatly made podcast. I truly appreciate your content, good stuff!

[@SuperDerek]

Thanks Luke! (Or maybe Nath?) We appreciate it! :)

[@16bitrpglabs68]

SuperDerek! I dont know if you see these comments or not, but if you do! I have two things to say. First! I LOVE your podcasts and content. It's amazing. Focusing on things that are happening and things to come. Glorious. Second: Please do not focus on any doom and gloom "Squaresoft is in trouble" type stuff, because not only does anyone not feel what this type of content your channel about is, but also it's playing into a doom and gloom type mentality that your channel is not about. While these things may, and do, exist, its not what your viewers tune in for. Focus on the positives, as you mostly do, and run with that. I love you for it, and I think most people who have subscribed to this channel do as well. Much Love, 16bit.

[@SuperDerek]

I absolutely _do_ read the comments, and appreciate this one very much. I'll do my best to stick to the path of positivity and hopefulness. Even with the turmoil at Square Enix, my _hopes_ are still that they'll overcome their struggles and reclaim their place at the top. :)

[@FreddyKen]

Timestamps. This week the Timestamps are bit late, so let's just say they are fashionably late 🤪 Welcome Back to Hit Point! 0:00:00 Welcome Back to Hit Point! 0:01:12 Intro 0:01:47 Baku how have you been? Last Week's Comments: 0:02:38 Comment 1: I refuse to buy it, if you I can't own it. 0:04:22 Comment 2: Great work as always fellas! 0:04:43 Comment 3: How can Microsoft/Xbox expect high sales not only from indie game, not well known on west dev and game in gamepass? 0:11:11 Comment 4: I’ve always said, subscription services devalue content by their nature. Upcoming Releases This Week 0:28:13 Witch & Lilies 0:29:24 Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door New Game Announced: 0:37:49 Sword of the Necromancer: Resurrection 0:42:05 Alzara Radiant Echoes Industry News: 0:49:24 Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito in Talks About a New Game 0:58:14 Charity Speedrun Event RPG Limit Break Side Quests (Discussion Topics): 1:01:26 What is a JRPG anyway? 1:03:52 You can't define a Genre after the origin. 1:05:19 We have a new era of JRPGs. 1:08:57 Why couldn't [insert japanese company here] do this?! 1:11:35 JRPG is a western concept. It's just how he categorize them and there is no hardline definition. 1:15:14 What would you say to somebody who says that western made JRPGs that attemt falls short in capturing the japanese style. 1:19:05 I want to remind people that Ys is a JRPG. 1:23:00 People like to make games that they also like playing and inspire them. 1:26:19 Disccuion the Interview with the CEO from Studio Camelia (Kickstarter: Alzara Radiant Echoes) 1:30:41 Do modern JRPGs have to much romance/harem? 1:36:05 Is Baku a fake Weeb? 1:39:24 The bottom line is this for anyone who is here, chancs are you are a fan of RPGs... Question of the Week 1:43:01 QotW: What is your favorit Western made JRPG. Responding to Super Chats & Outro 1:43:44 Super Chat 1: Silent protagonists in rpgs? 1:51:07 Super Chat 2: How do you feel about western style rpgs made by japanese developers? 1:57:16 Outro

[@SuperDerek]

Thank you Freddy! You sir are a gentleman and a scholar. :)

[@emulationemperor8924]

Might be a hot take, but I don't think Streaming services are fundamentally different from Cable anymore. Streaming was only novel because it was outside of the Cable ecosystem. But now we are seeing streaming services bundled together and with different tiers just like Cable was and still is. But now the novelty of binging seasons has kind of died down. People really enjoy having weekly content distributed to them in bite sized chunks. Either 30 minutes or an hour for a show, maybe a couple hours if you are watching a lot of things concurrently. But video games don't work with the cable model. Even lighter indie games are 6 to 10 hours. A lot of indie games are 10 to 20 hours. And then there are AAA games that are designed to siphon your time away by being perpetually playable. Games subscriptions just do not make sense at current prices, but the price is the only thing that makes it appealing.

[@VanitasSentiment13]

FFXVI is one of the games in recent memory that has such an amazing romance between Clive and Jill that gradually builds throughout the game in real meaningful way

[@FreddyKen]

For a hottub Baku Stream I think we would need a hottub RPG. And as far as I now, there is no RPG that playes only in a hottub .🙃

[@VanitasSentiment13]

The hero from DQXI is a good example of a silent protagonist done right

[@MassKezEffect6]

My favourite western made JRPG has to be Battlechasers: Nightwar.

[@anthonyherrick452]

Thanks, this show has top RPG knowledge. Should I be concerned that I get more excited for new indie releases? I believe that we are at a turning point in the industry. Not a crash

[@WeebSauce]

Thank you for watching! We may be at a turning point and I think it will be a cultural one. The expectation for western fans used to be hoping and praying for Japanese devs to give us the things we want without any real way to provide feedback. That is not the case with indie devs who work more closely to the fan base. While it is true that some Japanese devs will send surveys to international fans, between the limitation of that approach and the language barrier, it is simply not as effective as what western indies are doing in fan engagement. -Baku

[@Some_Random_Guy]

if a Japanese man makes "American food" in Japan, it doesn't suddenly become Japanese food. Similarly, making "Japanese food" in any other country doesn't prevent it from being Japanese food

[@stonenoir]

Not sure how JRPGs as a genre is growing, but considering how many we are getting on Switch, plus multi-platform capability, plus lower barrier to entry for creation... I wonder if the genre is more mainstream and we're gonna need to swap the J for something...I think Derek and Baku can start the movement

[@SuperDerek]

I tried my hand at the idea in a video essay if you're interested in giving another video a watch: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eGfOZoaViLSVZpo

[@WeebSauce]

I have shared my sentiment on this on a previous podcast. But just to recap, I don't think the JRPG genre is going away, nor is it necessary to, as long as it is useful as a category for people. To me, it's just a style/subset of RPG, much like how Film Noir is a style of Crime Drama in cinematography; it speaks to a certain sensibility. Even as Film Noir is no longer in vogue, the hallmark style remains and it has made its place in history, so is the designation that is JRPG, IMO. -Baku

[@Mclearmountain]

Indie games excite me because I don’t know what I’m getting

[@LowestExpectations]

I think I have played three western-made JRPGs. Crosscode, Sea of Stars and Secrets of Grindea. I didn't finish any of them. Closest I got to completing was Secrets of Grindea, but the true end has the most massive difficulty spike I've ever seen, I can't beat it (skill issue I know). The other two I dropped in the middle for different reasons. The story of Crosscode was interesting but it was tedious to play in various ways. Quest structure, world design, puzzle solving, combat. Sea of Stars was pretty to look at, but boring in every other regard. After the first big "twist" in the haunted zone I saw coming a mile away, I couldn't bring myself to continue. I still want to play Chained Echoes eventually, but I worry that it will suffer the same fate. This is all probably a 'me' problem more so than the games tbh. On the whole silent vs. non-silent protagonists... I prefer non-silent. The exception to this is if the MC is a fully customizable avatar, like in Skyrim or Xenoblade X, but if they have a set main character with their own backstory and personality... they shouldn't be silent. The whole self-insert thing does nothing for me, so I'd rather play as an interesting character instead.

[@japanimationman4442]

Well, I had to stop half way through to go to work, but now that I have seen the rest, I have opinions! But I'll have to check myself or I'll be writing a doctorate thesis. Western and Japanese RPGs are not all that different in terms of mechanics. Western RPGs originated with the desire to put tabletop D&D on a computer. While JRPGs originated with the desire to put computer RPGs on home consoles. What the game mechanics are is not really the point, but rather how those mechanics serve those goals. Action RPGs have been a Japanese thing since the beginning. Falcom was making action RPGs before the Famicom/NES even existed, and there have been action JRPGs in every console generation since. And lots of JRPGs were first person dungeon crawls in the early days as well. Megami Tensei was almost exclusively first person until the PS2 era. If Etrian Odyssey is a WRPG it is because of its character creation rather than its dungeon crawling mechanics. I think the primary difference between the two styles of RPG now is down to player agency. WRPGs are about giving the player the tools to do whatever they want, while JRPGs are about directing the player to fulfill the character's goals. For WRPGs this almost always comes down to a "silent protagonist" that is really nothing more than a player avatar. (The Ultima series takes this to the extreme. Your main character in that series is literally called The Avatar in universe, who is canonically YOU, the person sitting in front of the computer screen directly interacting with the game world.) JRPGs can go either way. But outside of Atlus, Dragon Quest and the Japanese side of the Wizardry games, most JRPGs rely on a more defined main character. (And it is worth noting that those exeptions are among the oldest JRPGs from a time when the style hadn't fully separated from WRPGs.) A more defined character usually serves the intended player agency of JRPGs better than a player avatar does. On that front, I agree with Baku completely. When done well, a silent protagonist serves the game well, and the same is true of vocal protagonists. And each can be done very poorly to the detriment of the game. SMT Nocturne would not work at all with a vocal protagonist, and Disgaea would never work with a silent protagonist. OK, I don't think I succeeded at keeping myself in check...

[@andresmicalizzi5420]

The cost of gamepass is destroying the industry. You counted US cost of the service, but it has regional pricing, In argentina for example, it costs less than 2 dollars... All people I know that play on pc use Gamepass and stopped buying games... I know the Argentinian Market Is small, but this replicates on almost all latín América AND other countries, and the ammount of money spent by People that already bought games goes down as well... Why buy something like Senua 2 or Hi Fi Rush if I can play it for 10 bucks...

[@evilblanketfish]

Do i want a new Nier game? Yes. Am i usre about that? Yes. The DrakeNier games don't really have anything similar about them other than the action RPG gameplay. The stories and settings, which is what YT mostly has his hands in, are very different. That is why there is usually huge amounts of lore that could make for 2-3 books or games in between them just to explain the vastly different setting. What we want when we ask for another game, be it Nier 3 or Drakengard 4, is for YT to crush our souls again. Which he will. Also, Chained Echoes is best western made JRPG i've played so far. Crosscode made me quit streaming

[@reyntime1950]

If you like a variety of different games those subscription services are pretty decent value. I personally wouldn't play 99% of the content offered so the value isn't there for me.

[@FreddyKen]

I do think silent protagonists are also come in many flavores. You can have a silent protagonist like the Hero from Dragon Quest 11 who doesn't say anything but also is just completely emotionless. You could exchange for a potato and you wouldn't notice the change. This type I don't really like I find it just lazy and I doesn't fell like a living being. That you can have a silent protagonist like Adol from Ys or Joker from Persona 5. Here you pick what the protagonist says, because of that he doesn't fell like a complet blank slate and you could easier self insert. Also these two chracters show some emtions and speak in some rare cases. This type I'm fine with the chracter still fells like a living being while still bein a bit of a blank slate for you to fill. And than there is Granblue Fantasy: Relink... Technicaly the protagonist was a silent protagnist as far as I see it. But here the maincracter also has option to choose a dialog, but they also talk more often than for example Adol. Also I found that they showed a lot of emotion that it loses the blank slate. This one blurrs the line between silent protagonist and and not silent protagonist. And I also liked this "silent protagonist". Bottom line is, I would say you can make a good and a bad silent protagonist It just comes to how you do it. But that is also true for a non silent protagonist.

[@MightyP]

Chained echoes so far has been the best JRPG indie I played

[@japanimationman4442]

Sea of Stars may or may not be better than Chrono Trigger, but I would be amazed if you could find someone who genuinely believes that it is not better thanTecmo Secret of the Stars.

[@SuperDerek]

_Exactly!_ Why do we measure these small studios against the legendary RPGs (and all of our nostalgia for them,) and not the average specimen? "You think this is an impressionist painting? But It's not even as good as a _Monet."_

[@japanimationman4442]

I've got a couple of caveats to this. Certainly it is unfair to demand that indie devs live up to the standard of the best RPGs ever, but still, they must compete with them. They exist in the same market and often on the same storefronts. Whether it is fair or not, they are still competing with the best RPGs ever for customers' hard earned cash, and they need to make a good enough showing to earn those sales. The other caveat is that these indie devs are new to the scene, relatively speaking. These early days of Western JRPGs are naturally going to be bumpy. Given some more years of experience and iteration, I think the scene is going to improve drastically. And that is definitely something to be excited about.

[@mechaotakugamer]

Magna Carta is considered a jrpg despite being made by a Korean studio. It was published here by atlus usa

[@mechaotakugamer]

And the sequel was published by Bandai namco. But I still consider it a jrpg as the publisher is a Japanese company and has aspects of it in both gameplay and story and characters that make it feel like a jrpg

[@indexical1897]

Thanks for discussing my admittedly broad strokes comment re. subscription services. I totally see your perspective that subscription platforms are a helpful way to give some games exposure. I suppose I worry that while the selection box approach means people are more inclined to try different games, they’re possibly not as invested as they would be had they gone and bought the game outright.

[@WeebSauce]

Thanks for writing to us!! I think you are on the money regarding the "play for free" part though; I think that kind of messaging is damaging to the value of the games in question when they are not free else where. I also think it is probably exclusively an xbox problem, as far as subscription services is concerned (that I am aware of). -Baku

[@thecouchpotato88]

I agree with Baku. Some games are beautiful just the way they are. With a definite ending. Just like an animè that has a conclusive ending, better to leave it like that

[@SuperDerek]

It's true. The thing is, a good game _always_ leaves us wanting more.

[@m.3.3.w]

I hope to hear a good review on this game soon! (TTYD that is.) Would like a sequel to finish up the villain's backstory (or comeback) but that can wait for another day.

[@rei-miyazaki]

Favorite western made Japanese style RPG? The only title i can remember is Sea of Star. Also a question, right now I'm kind of lost interest playing JRPG. Currently i just play game with mostly action game like Stellar Blade and Elden Ring. maybe tired reading all those long text of conversation. Any tips so i can back enjoy playing JRPG?

[@WeebSauce]

Apologies for the delayed response; I read your comment on Monday but had to give myself a little time to think about this one. I don't know if this will help you, but I break up my JRPG playing sessions with little "palate cleansers" by throwing in shorter games of other genre in the mix. Like, some Resident Evil, or even some point and clicks. Bottom-line, I don't believe you can just force yourself to enjoy something. If and when you want to get back into JRPGs again, you just will; they will be there for you when you are ready. -Baku

[@rei-miyazaki]

@@WeebSauce thank you. will try that.

[@faidou9954]

So...bad ending?