Oh god, definitely. Just let me play the damn game, Iāll figure it out.
Love you Dark Souls, youāre such a good boy.
Actually itās pretty amazing that in Dark Souls, theyāll write a single line in an item description that implies an entire complex history, characters, motivations. Then youāll play a Trails game or something, and a character will babble on for 5 minutes about why another character canāt get laid.
Yeah this is basically I feel about it anyway. More often than not the stuff people take issue with as excess is what I enjoy for giving a little life to the experience. I mean I dropped Expedition 33 for a lot of reasons but one being that no one in that game had anything even close to a personality for my tastes, and I really like pretty much every game that has been cited here for wasting time, so, 
Haha, two games I love catching some strays here. I feel obliged to offer my views as part of the conversation, but Iām explicitly not seeking to convert anyone; art speaks to us each in its own way.
Trails in the Sky 1st was such a breath of fresh air to me. The world and especially its NPCs feel alive to a degree I rarely see in the vast, vast majority of games Iāve played, even the ones praised for their writing. There are miniplots to follow between each story beat. The NPCs donāt feel like pure filler, they advance their own agendas and contribute a great deal to the overall worldbuilding, making the world feel lived in. Half the reason Iām playing these games in Japanese is to learn Japanese, so that style of storytelling-in-small-pieces fits my needs perfectly.
I guess this abundance of content may become a problem for perfectionists & completionists? Itās allowed in the Rulesā¢ to just skip content where you find the reward to effort ratio isnāt quite right yet. Of course it also varies over time ā I can tackle more complex material during slow weekends than after a busy workday. Iām very aware of my stamina when Iām picking which game to play further. Thankfully it has increased over time.
Final Fantasy VII Remake plays the secondary worldbuilding scenes via audio as you approach NPCs, which makes it easier to tune out of, but at least for me makes it much harder to grasp ā my reading is far stronger than my listening. Still, I feel that approach is the more immersive one ā youāre not expected to latch on to every single word you hear someone say.
Expedition 33 did have some movie quip style exchanges during its early scenes, perhaps unavoidable when you move the plot so fast, but on the other hand had it develops to some of the strongest party member writing Iāve experienced in quite some while. Combined with the excellent voice acting, they all do have personality in spades ā the game doesnāt force you talk to them during campsite moments or pursue their optional side quests, but itās there in the game for those who care. I rather liked the economic approach in that game. Baldurās Gate III had 150 hours more playtime to establish its characters; with Expedition 33 they did that in record time.
From Softwareās minimal, implicit, environment-based storytelling certainly suits its games, but itās a completely different genre. They left enough of it unwritten on purpose to let lorecrafters and YouTubers go wild. Itās more about setting a mood and the main objective than anything else. There are longer video essays than the combined amount of spoken dialogue in those gamesā¦ The story is also extremely opt-in, far more than any JRPG ā Iād wager most players just dodge roll through it without understanding or really caring much about the plot at all. Works for those games!
If we come back to Final Fantasy, I really miss having party members who have any personality. I guess that is to say I prefer to have my stories told through their characters. Of course this was not the norm back in late 80s, early 90s, but this aspect is slowly developing right before our eyes in this seriesā¦ I guess FFIV is where we really get to enjoy a rather gargantuan leap forward in that regard. I replayed FFVI a ~year ago and it did delight me how much it invests into its characters already ā even if they donāt all get equal attention.
To be fair, I love Trails, and I plan to play the remake in japaneseā¦ but it goes on
and on
and on
and on.
I almost dropped the game when nothing happened for the first 30 hours, and no one had anything interesting to say beyond generic anime trope slop. It got pretty good eventually, though. To think that that goddamn hundred hour game is only HALF of the intended story, yikes.
BTW, I didnāt bring up Dark Souls to compare it directly with narrative RPGs. I actually brought it up to compare with the the ridiculous over-tutorialization that Simias complained about. But, I also admire its ability to say a lot with a few words. You donāt HAVE to minimize your dialogue, but you should strive to say as much as you can with the words you do use, and Dark Souls says a lot with a little.
In the abstract I lean towards liking lighter tutorializing as well, though Iām kinda mixed on Dark Souls because my experience starting the series (with DS1) was that the in-game stuff was nowhere near sufficient for me at the time to figure out how the RPG systems worked, where my damage additions would come from and what I was putting points into and etc. Iāve seen that personally repeated a lot where working out how to play Dark Souls doesnāt really click until people read a wiki which is pretty non-ideal to me.
Honestly back then I also didnāt click with the combat because I was coming from games at the time being primarily about spacing, which exists still, but i-framing THROUGH things was pretty alien to me and pretty much nothing in the game tells you about it. Must be less of a problem these days now that everything is about i-frame dodges (not something Iām big on but thatās a tangent), but yeah. Without the help of the internet and a friend who played it I would not have been able to figure out Dark Souls so I personally really donāt want to praise its lack of tutorialization specifically.
Haha, indeedā¦ and then there are 11 games after the first two, not counting remasters or remakes. Itās unique in its already shipped scope. (Also, the sister series Ys has ten mainline entries outā¦)
Iād agree with this 100% if we were talking about clear non-fiction writing, brevity being the soul of wit and all, but I donāt find it such a persuasive rule to follow in fiction ā especially in formats without a narrator, like most games. Dialogue is a strong tool for worldbuilding and adding flavor.
Planescape: Torment and Disco Elysium are two examples of games utilizing that power to tell great stories ā nothing short of capital L Literature wearing video game clothing. Saying a lot with a lot of words is also a valid approach!
Of course we were not discussing quite that caliber of writing here, but I didnāt find the Trails NPC dialogue & books to be much different from Soulslike equipment descriptions or NieR weapon stories ā optional content for those who seek it, rather safe to ignore if youād rather focus on completing the main story.
My first playthrough was in Japanese, so I was a bit hesitant at first, but with Trails 1st much of the seemingly mundane dialogue did ultimately pay off in terms of encountering those people and places later on. There also seems to be quite a lot of material setting up the rest of the series; Erebonia, Calvard and Crossbell are frequently mentioned and described in addition to Liberl. Canāt wait to eventually get to see those places as well.
Please donāt take my words to be an argument for terseness. I LOVE words. I have a passion for my original language, which is why Iām also passionate about other languages.
I read more than most people youāll ever meet. I played Torment when I was 14, along with every other infinity engine RPG and (nearly?) every game inspired by them. Disco Elysium is practically poetry, overwrought but amazing to read. I read every doorstopper 15 book series, including WoT when I was 12 and song of ice and fire when I was 13 and clearly too young for the content. Iām nearly finished with Brandon Sandersonās entire output (just some āshortā stories) to finish up. That guy writes a lot with a lot of words.
I just donāt think your typical JRPG does much of anything with their copious word vomit. Neither did Sandersonās latest work Stormlight novel, which also had a tendency to go onā¦ even for him. Judging by Reddit most of his fans seem to agree.
Also note that I did say Trails was only a middling offenderā¦ I agree a lot of its world building eventually paid off, even if plenty was still superfluous. No, the ones I hate just wish they were bad VNs, but with a combat system. See: almost every non-square RPG on the SNESā¦ or PS1.
Iāll probably try get back on the bandwagon for this thread. Iāll probably end up playing the steam release of ff3d since ff3d ds was my first introduction to ff3 and back in earlier internet times, ingus was my usual avatar lol
Loving to see the numbers 
Itās really not that much, novels length vary from 60k to 200k, and Visual Novels are usually way over 500k.
But I guess here you also need to spend time finding your way into dungeon, leveling up in combat, getting lost because you didnāt remember this one clue from the NPC in week 1, etc..
Okay, everything is back up and Iām done importing. Sorry again! It was important to me that āin order of game appearanceā was actually as true as I could get it and I realized after making it public that large sections of the game had gotten mixed into the wrong places.
I do love seeing just how much of a headstart FF 1 and 2 have already given us! Putting in the early work makes approaching the next games so much less daunting than seeing something like <20% learned 
Now that we are in the last couple weeks of FF2, should we have a poll to decide when we want to start FF3?
Yes! I will do it soon.
I think Iāll have 1 week break, 2 week break and 4 week break. I donāt think I want to wait more than a month given the huge scope of this club as it isā¦
Ok here we go:
You can pick 2 options. The poll will close in a week.
Well, Iām leaving for my first vacation to Japan with the family and weāll be back on the 21st, so that might be a tad early for me. Then again, I already did the first dungeon so maybe its fineā¦
21st of which month?
21st of March, as in the poll.
Ah I see. Looks like itās going to be the 28th anyway.
Iām about halfway through my filthy preplay of FF3 using the Pixel Remaster and Iām really enjoying myself. Itās starting to really feel like a āproperā Final Fantasy. I also enjoy having a more whimsical tone, FF2 was a bit of a downer with everybody dying all the time. Admittedly FF3 overcompensates a bit and is downright goofy at times, but I donāt mind it.
I would like to try to play FF3 together with the club but I have one wish: can the threads be spoiler free? 
Definition of a spoiler for me is, something that I donāt know yet if I havenāt played the game yet. So for example things like āthere are 3 big dungeons to comeā, ānext week the dialog is lightā, are spoilers for me.
(in case the said spoilers are hidden between spoiler tags or in summary tags, with an indication that itās a spoiler, of course I donāt mind)
