The Western RPG has indefinately ruined the J-RPG for me.
After the likes of the Fable series, Fallout 3, The Elder Scrolls games, Dragon age, and the Mass Effects, I have a hard time settling down to the experience of being told the story, rather than directly influencing it.
Not that I don't appreciate the conventions. I loved the amount of Persona 3 FES that I played before the memory card disappeared. The Genso Suikoden series will always hold a dear place in my heart, Atelier Iris is fantastic...The SaGa series can go suck my left nut, of course, but there's always exceptions to the rules...
All that said, with Final Fantasy 13 approaching fast, I reflect on my relationship with the Final Fantasy series over the last few years. I stopped playing Final Fantasy 10 around the time we were gathering the ultimate weapons for the final showdown. I played it's sequel, 10-2 for approximately three hours before I deemed it far to girly for me to continue. I got as far as level 10 in Final Fantasy 11 before both me and my brother deemed it not a completely worthwhile forray into online gaming, equally so Final Fantasy 12 which tried to utilize MMO strategems to the point I wanted to put the disc into a toaster. Plainly said, our relationship is strained. Much like how my interest in the Dragon Quest series has waned to the point where my main concern is which characters will be sporting the most impressive rack, my interest in the expansive sword and sorcery series putters along like a car with a bad transmission and a wheel about to go out.
I will still play it...Don't get me wrong...I just yearn for a time that the series might return to it's roots in gameplay and style. When it wasn't about game control gimics and akward combat systems. Back when it could still be considered a fun RPG series to play rather than a frustrating study in anger management.
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