Nintendo Okie

I was just minding my own business when it hit me; I don’t play any JRPGs or RTSs. Once I had this revelation, it also occurred to me I had no reason for not playing those types of games. There are other genres I don’t play but for good reason. I don’t play sport sims because I am not a big sports fan. I don’t play racing sims because I like kart racers and arcade racers more. I didn’t play a lot of survival horror games when I was in high school but once I was in college for a few years, I got over being a big baby and fell in love with Resident Evil. The strange thing about JRPGs and RTSs, I was around them a lot in high school. I would watch my friends play Command And Conquer and Final Fantasy every other week. I knew how to play them and saw the appeal, so what happened. I decided I should play these genres and find out if I really like them or not.

My next question was where I should start. I figured I would find a JRPG to play first; but which one? If you ask for a JRPG it’s inevitable someone will answer with Final Fantasy. I considered Final Fantasy for a moment but I decided it wouldn’t be the best place to start. As I said before, I watched my friends play a lot of FFVII, FFVIII and FF Tactics years ago. While I enjoyed watching them play, the games never grabbed me. I loved the cinematic presentation of FFVII. I, and everyone else, had never seen anything like it before. Most people hold it in such high regard for just that reason. However, some other aspects bothered me. I couldn’t get past how the characters looked so awesome in cutscenes but outside of that, they were a hideous stack of polygons in comparison. In all truthfulness, different models for cutscenes and gameplay are a major pet peeve of mine.

The other thing that bothered me is how the combat looked kind of boring, other than the summons of course. It always appeared to me as selecting words from menus to cause numbers to fall off of the enemy. Once I decided against Final Fantasy, I considered Dragon Quest ever so briefly. I’m a huge Dragon Ball Z fan so the character designs from Akira Toriyama were a plus but I had all the same quips about DQ as I did FF. No surprise there. A friend introduced me to Valkyria Chronicles and while I loved the art style and was tempted to dive into JRPGs and RTSs at the same time, I figured it would be best to experience both genres on their own first.

I was having trouble finding a JRPG to suite my tastes but thanks to Giant Bomb I found what I was looking for. It’s no secret I’m a big fan of Giant Bomb. In fact, I spend as much time on their site as I do our own. What I am getting at is I watched the Persona 4 Endurance Run and I loved it. It wasn’t just the commentary of Jeff Gerstmann and Vinny Caravella, but I loved the combat, story and presentation of Persona 4. The paper, rock, scissors combat had a lot of depth and best of all, the menus had a sense of style that other RPGs lacked. To top it all off the character interactions actually made you see your teammate as characters and not just weapons.

Since then I have tracked down all the Persona games and I am slowly making my way through them; they are really long games after all. I am growing more comfortable with JRPGs and I feel like I should give FFX a try someday soon. Thanks to Persona and Giant Bomb, I have broken though my JRPG barrier and discovered one of my favorite games/franchises of all time. Now all I need is the same thing in RTS form. Similarly to FF, if you ask people for an RTS they will probably say Star Craft. RTSs are a little more complex for me as I don’t play a lot of games on PC and feel more comfortable with a controller in my hand. I have my eyes set on Halo Wars but I haven’t made up my mind yet.

I almost wonder if I should force myself to play a PC based RTS to open my palette to games on computer at the same time as breaking into RTSs. Star Craft has a high barrier to entry in my mind. I might feel more comfortable with a Command And Conquer game since I have played one in the past; plus it has a tongue-in-cheek storyline that would suite my sense of humor. Despite what game I end up choosing, I challenge y’all to try and open your game palettes. Think about the game genres you don’t play and then search for one that catches your interest. You may surprise yourself with what you find.