I've played my fair share of them, and I've slowly gotten used to the fact that most of them are vibrant and very strange. I'm not just talking about twisted games like Disgaea and Katamari Damacy. I'm talking about these games that will usually intertwine their strangeness into a seemingly normal environment. Take Metal Gear Solid, for example. It's got the whole secret agent feel, and that's normal in a game, but then they throw in military psychics, little plastic frogs in warzones, the La-le-lu-le-lo, and cyborg ninjas. All this makes me wonder if there is some method to this madness, because I'm just not understanding where it all comes from.

I remember that far far back in my younghood, I was used to see scifi in only one way, the way of Star Wars.
Then one day, I saw a picture of something totally crazy. A submarine... well, a spaceship looking like a submarine - and that's a weird thing to say, considering that I was already watching Captain Harlock.
Then, in a video game magazine, I saw a sort of WWII tank parked on the edge of a cliff... on Mars.
IIRC, these were from japanese products. They really mix everything. Sometimes it works, sometimes it sucks big times.

The parallel I make is simple. Like their industries post WWII, they have scavenged a lot of technologies. They have learnt a lot, and this kind of Borg-like assimilation really transpires through their culture.
They'll revamp everything, like myths and religions, and fuse them into completely out of bounds metaconcepts.

However, despite this apparent richness due to exceptional creations that really stick out, the vast majority of their products seem to be stuck in genres which make the Japanese look rather close minded.

I'm just not a fan of the Japanese RPG, I don't see them as revolutionary, I don't see them as well written, I just don't see much in them. I could look past turn based combat for a game like KOTOR, but not for Final Fantasy, the plot simply isn't there for me. I apologize if this sounds rude, I've seen so many people join the "I love Japan" or "Anime rocks, American animation sucks" bandwagons and while I have no problem with people liking another culture or another medium of film, I don't like people trying to become something they aren't by abandoning if not insulting where they came from, particularly when where they come from isn't all that bad. It's not as if the Japanese are as interested in American culture, hell despite all that they may buy into like pop rock and american clothing, many still resent Americans. Having spoken with people that immigrated to Japan for jobs, I have a mildly clear perspective as towards how the feel about Westerners, and the general feeling is not a warm one. That isn't to say that they are all the same, but there is still a feeling, one that can be likened to being a hippy in the southeast US during the 60s-70s; you aren't from around here and we don't like you.

For having played both FF7 and KOTOR, in terms of plot, FF7 is just as complex.

When counting everything established about Jenova, the planet, what happened in Nibelheim, the Mako generators, the cannon, the other characters (Rufus, Tifa, Bareth, etc.), the relation between Cloud, Sephiroth and Zack, the role of the Shinra, the Turk, etc.
No, this is definitely consequent.

Now, I'm not saying all FFs were messy like this one.

For the most part I find that the Japanese tend to be more creative with their games overall. As far as Anime goes I do think it is indeed better than the things currently coming out of America with a few notable exceptions, in my opinion America needs to bring back shows like exo-squad but shows like Dead Zone and 4400 are definetly a step in the right direction.

Japanese TV is just as filled with trash as American TV. A lot of people just don't notice because 1) a lot of stuff gets filtered, 2) it's a different culture so a lot of it seems new. In the end, though, the vast majority of Japanese television is all the same, and what used to seem new and different becomes insanely trite.

While that was a response to commentary on Japanese television, I do feel it speaks well for a lot of the Japanese gaming industry as well. It is particularly obvious in the field of JRPG's, but even some of their other titles are lacking originality. That, or they are built upon a single gimmick that seems fun, but not worth a full price. Cooking Mama looks like an enjoyable game, but there's no way I'm dropping $50 for it. I like Trauma Center, but if it wasn't a Christmas gift alongside my Wii I would never have dropped the cash for it. The games are fun, but not full price fun. I see that trend a lot in Japanese titles that aren't JRPG.

Currently, Capcom is the only Japanese developer that truly has me hooked to their titles. Nintendo has me interested in a few, but not as much or often as Capcom. Of course, I credit this to Keiji Inafune's own personal perspective on the industry. In his eyes, Japan is not advancing like the Western world is in game development. In order to try and push Japan forward, he figures the best thing is to take ideas that Japanese like and combine them with Western ideas. This is why they've made plenty of third person shooters that were successful in both the East and West, and have been able to market titles such as Pheonix Wright over in the states.

I always look forward to seeing what Capcom has up their sleeve, sometimes more so than Western studios. There isn't any other Japanese studio that keeps my interest, though.

I enjoy Japanese games a great deal, but I make sure not to take them too seriously. The stories are usually interesting, if convoluted. That's just the way it is. I've been living in Japan for almost four years, and have a Japanese wife; I see all kinds of craziness all the time. You'd think that for a country that boasts such excellent math scores, they would have conventional, easy-to-understand logic. But in many of my interactions with Japanese people, where I saw a + b = c, they saw a + b = monkeycandle.

Example: I had been watching a show on TV with my wife. I was a kind of soap opera about being a office worker in a large company. Simple concept, simple execution. You know how it ends? The main character is POSESSED BY A DEMON and his heart stops!

Really? Freakin' REALLY?!

Like I said, if you buy entertainment media from Japan, expect wierdness. That's just how it goes.

Arbre:
The parallel I make is simple. Like their industries post WWII, they have scavenged a lot of technologies. They have learnt a lot, and this kind of Borg-like assimilation really transpires through their culture.
They'll revamp everything, like myths and religions, and fuse them into completely out of bounds metaconcepts.

I think if you go back through Japanese history, especially to the Meiji restoration following the forced end of their isolationism, you'll find that as a country, their cultural tendencies towards assimilating, re-working, and embracing foreign ideas go way back. Either way, you bring up a really interesting point, and I think its very true.

I don't think it's worth generalizing. Someone who knows me knows some of my favorite story-telling games: Half-Life 2, Metal Gear Solid. American, Japanese. Neither culture is inherently a better story-teller, game-designer, etc. It's just different styles, often.

Japan is just weird in general, but their games sort of bring that to light more so than the rest of their culture.

I mean, really, would you buy, say, having a plumber go to a kingdom of mushrooms to rescue a princess that was kidnapped by an evil turtle, and his only means of attack is to crush his enemies under his body weight, unless he finds a mushroom that makes him double in size, or a flower that grants him the ability to shoot fireballs, or a star that will make him invincible for 10 seconds, all of which he finds by hitting floating "?" blocks that also have coins and beanstalks that rise up into the sky?

And that's just the concept from the FIRST game, the other ones get so much weirder in so many ways...

You try explaining something like Super Mario Bros. to somebody from the 70's, and they will not get it, at all, until you show them the game, and even then...

But the thing is, nobody ever really notices or cares how weird Japanese games are, since they're usually too busy having fun and enjoying the game to bother thinking about how it would all work.

And, really, that's the way it should be.

If you're overanalizing everything in a Japanese game, then stop playing and return it to the store, cause that's a sure sign you're not having fun.

See, people will usually gravitate toward either the weird or the familiar, and the majority of Japanese and English games will go towards their respective types. Personally, I go towards whatever is original and innovative, and it may be because the Japanese make so many different games that to go a long amount of time without playing a good one is unlikely. Plus, sometimes I play games and can't tell who made it and don't care (Shadow Hearts was incredibly quirky, but didn't seem Japanese).

Jacques 2:
I apologize if this sounds rude, I've seen so many people join the "I love Japan" or "Anime rocks, American animation sucks" bandwagons and while I have no problem with people liking another culture or another medium of film, I don't like people trying to become something they aren't by abandoning if not insulting where they came from, particularly when where they come from isn't all that bad.

How is liking Anime more than western animation an insult to a culture? It's just personal preference. Personally, I enjoy Japanese animation because I just see a lot more diversity in it, both in terms of style and content, than I see with western animation. Recently, it has been changing a bit but, at least in my eyes, western animation still has a pretty long way to go. But anyway, this is really completely irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is games.

I would hope I'm not the only one, but I view Japanese games in the same way I view American games and European games. There's good ones and there's bad ones(usually a whole lot more bad then good, but I guess that's the nature of most mediums), and that's it. They have different predominant styles and frequently different emphasis, but in the end of the day you'd really have to make an amazingly broad generalization to say anything more specific than that. They have as many bad games as we do and the same goes for good games. They just do things differently.

The games I play tend to be Japanese more often than not, mostly due to the fact that most of the games I play happen to be either RPGs or Strategy RPGs and there just aren't that many western games that fit that(nevermind good ones) in comparison to japanese games. That's just how it is though - if you're an FPS or a sports fan, then it's pretty much guaranteed most games you'll be playing will be western games. Likewise, if you like fighting games, it's kinda hard to ignore Japanese games.

In my view, "Do you like Japanese games?" ultimately boils down to "What types of games do you enjoy the most?" than anything else.

I tried to word it in a way that it wouldn't sound that way, but what I'm saying is I know a lot of people who jump on the Anime bandwagon and starting learning Japanese, start wearing anime T-shirts, start throwing away anything western and just trying to become homogeneous with Japan's culture, or the culture that they think they have. I consider that an insult to western culture, not that I think liking anime equates to such abandon, nor do I think it is unique, there are always sheeple of one kind or another.

I like Japanese games. Grew up on the stuff. Not saying I cant enjoy a good western game. When it comes to anything Japanese I find it interesting, not weird (for the most part). I enjoy both cultures(for the most part again). Once you become less ignorant and more open-minded in these things, you'll enjoy more things. Good stuff on both sides.

I think you're just looking for something that's not Western for the sake of it, there are still some good things in this hemisphere you know

I remember when FF7 first came out and all the high praise the game received. People everywhere talking about how intense and emotional the story was, how exciting the game was and what an evolution for RPGs everywhere. I played the game, enjoyed it and then moved on to FF8, FF9, FF10 and then recently FF12.

Imagine my shock, to play a game like Kotor, or Baldur's gate and see a well-fleshed out story with convincing characters, emotions and a definitive and understandable beginning and ending. All of this led me to realizing that in many, but not all of the Japanese made RPG games I was playing had these kind of bizarre stories that in the end I sometimes just didn't really get.

FF12 was the first game in the entire series that felt like it had a solid story from start to finish and of course people complained that it was similar to Star Wars or that it wasn't as deep as the previous titles. There was certainly a large group unhappy with the main character, even though I thought he worked fine for showing the story happening around him, if not necessarily to him.

I realize that this rule doesn't apply to all Japanese RPG games, but I have certainly seen my share of vague and convoluted story-telling, which to me is even worse than just a bad story.

A little bit of both is the way to go. Sure, japanese games/series can be really, really weird, and not seldom only for the sole purpose of being weird. But sometimes, when there's some real thought behind the madness it can create a unique atmosphere that you just don't get anywhere else.

Can't really put my finger on it in games, because there's generally not that much madness in their mainstream games, but for series I guess I could mention Paranoia Agent. Of course, western culture has the same kind of writers, but they're just not given the same amount of space, probably because publishers and producers don't think there's a target audience. But we do have David Lynch and Tim Schaefer, and who wants to rack on them? : /

Well certainly David Lynch is a bit out there and there are plenty of crazy/bizarre American directors, but I think Tim Schaefer stills makes strange/creative games that still have solid story lines that have a logic to them that at least allows a complete story to be told.

Okay, I'm going to go out onto a very, very thin and brittle limb here (considering the prevailing opinion about Japanese storylines on this forum) and say this:
SIMILAR PLOT DEVICES DOES NOT EQUAL SAME STORY.
I'm so tired of everyone drawling on about how so many Japanese games are either totally fucked up or identical to every other one. If that were true, then we'd see identical character personalities in the same positions (primary, secondary, tertiary, etc.) doing the exact same thing. Sure, there are some games out there that mimic something to the letter, but don't say there isn't anything in the West that doesn't do that also. Look at a few characters I'm going to list off for whatever reason:
Laharl: evil, wants to rule all existence with an iron fist, main character
Marona: sweet, caring, etc., main character
Adell: honorable, fight-happy, main character
Cloud: emo, liar, savior, main character
(Legend of Mana hero/heroine): silent (save for one line), heroic out of mythology, main character
Kirby: similarly silent, lazy, childish, glutton, hero, main character
Link: honorable, randomly destined hero, sailor(?), etc., main character
I know I did mention a lot of characters there, barely scratched the surface (on some), and even didn't mention a lot of others that I could have, but if there is a stereotype, don't forget that there are A LOT of them, so it doesn't really matter.
To be fair, I will say that (at least in recent years) some western games have been getting good, I mean, look at Half-Life, System Shock, Bioshock, Portal, and whatever else everyone is tooting a horn about all the time. But good god, before you say Japanese games are doing the same thing over and over again, look at your own damned country (or hemisphere, I'm too lazy too actually look up where a lot of these games came from, but I assume it's the U.S.): GTA 1-?, apparently the Medal of Honor series is doing the same thing over and over again, WWII games in general, and (speaking of doing the same thing over and over again, the ultimate) grinding MMO's.
Japanese games have their fair share of problems and repetativeness, but I'll go to hell before I'm told that there aren't a fair share of similarly blighted western games.

Small girls with very little clothing sounding like they're in pain scare me. I'm not saying Japan is filled with perverts or anything but all it takes is one little girl etc etc to scare me. However the rest is just weird because it's different so there is a huge bias in my view that way. Except for the little girl I'll always be creeped out by that even if I were to move to Japan.

Well, as randomly placed as that is, I think that small girls sounding like they are in pain is supposed to be scary or unnerving or whatever. I can't say that anyone wouldn't have some kind of negative reaction to that unless they were some kind of freak.

I think there are some great Japanese games. Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! is one of the best examples I can think of. The Japanese music and bizarre stories came together to make a great game that just was not the same when turned into Elite Beat Agents. Phoenix Wright is another great Japanese series that I'm quite fond of. I used to be a fan of JRPGs but have kind of lost interest these days, though I am very interested in Lost Odyssey.

That said, I have one big complaint about Japanese games. For every great one I've played, there is probably at least one utterly despicable game that should never have been created. I'm talking about rape and pedophilia games. That anyone would ever make such a thing is messed up and that enough people buy them to make them profitable frightens me.

So I think Japan makes some brilliant games and some games that scare the hell out of me.

I highly enjoy a good JRPG. Actually, it's what my entire PS2 collection WAS consistent of. Was is in capitals because I sold my PS2 for a 360. 360 is, without a doubt, severly lacking anything from Japan, let alone RPGs. Blue Dragon- Sorry, it sucked. The Story was terrible, the game play was mediocre. Would I be buying good JRPGs if they were on the 360? Without a doubt. But there aren't any, and for now I don't really mind.

Ranzel:
I highly enjoy a good JRPG. Actually, it's what my entire PS2 collection WAS consistent of. Was is in capitals because I sold my PS2 for a 360. 360 is, without a doubt, severly lacking anything from Japan, let alone RPGs. Blue Dragon- Sorry, it sucked. The Story was terrible, the game play was mediocre. Would I be buying good JRPGs if they were on the 360? Without a doubt. But there aren't any, and for now I don't really mind.

I felt the same way about the 360 until I bought Eternal Sonata. It's starts off slowly and it has some very very long cut-scenes but it is still a really really enjoyable game.

modris:
That said, I have one big complaint about Japanese games. For every great one I've played, there is probably at least one utterly despicable game that should never have been created. I'm talking about rape and pedophilia games. That anyone would ever make such a thing is messed up and that enough people buy them to make them profitable frightens me.

Yea that's what i was trying to say.

The real problems I have with Japanese games is this strange quirkiness with save points, needless repetition coupled with annoying timesinks, the mind-numbing pursuit of perfection in face of a computer playing with a stacked deck, and punishment for failure either being death or something greater than death.
1. Savepoints - Come on, YOU HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY to SAVE ANYWHERE! Use it!
2. Repetition should be used sparingly. And why is it usually coupled with timesinks?
1+2: Why am I having to replay parts of a game I can do perfectly just to get the point I'm actually having problems with.
3. Rough bosses made rougher, and then you have to either:
A. perform within a very limited time,
B. not get hit AT ALL,
C. perform some odd task whilst everything else is going,
D. ALL OF THE ABOVE.
I never understood this obsession of perfection against ridiculous odds, since after a point it becomes more dependent upon luck and twitch reactions rather than strategy and execution.
4. Oh no, I accidently got gazed by the big bad boss while at full health... DEAD. Not severely hurt and looking for a place to hide and recover... JUST DEAD. A wayward boss fart warps the air around me... DEAD. The big bad boss calls me a bad name... DEAD and my family is shamed for generations to come.

Individually, these things are everywhere. But this combination of all of them seems to absolutely plague Japanese games. I know these don't seem to deal with the weirdness and all, but content can be as crazy as it wants in my opinion. It's just that the laws in Japanese game design seem to mandate using as many of these design elements as possible. I don't know if it's just culture or just a carryover from the older console days.

Well, sure, if you try and breeze through the game like some FPS or 3rd person action/adventure game.
I agree with the blighting of savepoints, but I disagree that they can necessarily save anywhere, considering how much less space it takes up to have predetermined points, (further) but they also should have many more than some do (e.g.- Xenosaga, one per freaking entire area unless you go out of your way to find some other one from a previous area).

You gotta love Japan for throwing all our story archetypes into a blender with keywords like "demon", "ninja", and "schoolgirl".

As a matter of fact, I think those three keywords were thrown into a blender with Tekken to create Dead or Alive.

BubbaBrown:
The real problems I have with Japanese games is this strange quirkiness with save points, needless repetition coupled with annoying timesinks, the mind-numbing pursuit of perfection in face of a computer playing with a stacked deck, and punishment for failure either being death or something greater than death.
1. Savepoints - Come on, YOU HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY to SAVE ANYWHERE! Use it!
2. Repetition should be used sparingly. And why is it usually coupled with timesinks?
1+2: Why am I having to replay parts of a game I can do perfectly just to get the point I'm actually having problems with.
3. Rough bosses made rougher, and then you have to either:
A. perform within a very limited time,
B. not get hit AT ALL,
C. perform some odd task whilst everything else is going,
D. ALL OF THE ABOVE.
I never understood this obsession of perfection against ridiculous odds, since after a point it becomes more dependent upon luck and twitch reactions rather than strategy and execution.
4. Oh no, I accidently got gazed by the big bad boss while at full health... DEAD. Not severely hurt and looking for a place to hide and recover... JUST DEAD. A wayward boss fart warps the air around me... DEAD. The big bad boss calls me a bad name... DEAD and my family is shamed for generations to come.

Individually, these things are everywhere. But this combination of all of them seems to absolutely plague Japanese games. I know these don't seem to deal with the weirdness and all, but content can be as crazy as it wants in my opinion. It's just that the laws in Japanese game design seem to mandate using as many of these design elements as possible. I don't know if it's just culture or just a carryover from the older console days.

I liked #4, because its completely and annoyingly true. I remeber in one of the PS2 Final Fantasies, althought this is probably in all FF games, there was this one boss who just had a move blatantly called "Death". As the name suggests, it killed the recipient of the move. To make a short story shorter, I never beat the guy, and actually gave up on the game as such.

I never thought I'd write these words, but I agree with Bubba. I don't think it's all that difficult to include the ability to save anywhere and with a few exceptions it shouldn't break a well designed game. Things like DDR, Ouendan and Guitar Hero wouldn't be nearly as much fun if you could save part of the way through a song and retry until you got things right but with other games I think it's just considerate to let players stop when they want and pick the game up from that point later on. I also don't see the appeal of enemies with instant-death attacks. If you win, it was luck because if you were unlucky the unavoidable-death-attack would have killed you. These aren't flaws specific to Japanese games, but they do seem to pop up in a lot of them.

I remember when FF7 first came out and all the high praise the game received. People everywhere talking about how intense and emotional the story was, how exciting the game was and what an evolution for RPGs everywhere.

(...)

I realize that this rule doesn't apply to all Japanese RPG games, but I have certainly seen my share of vague and convoluted story-telling, which to me is even worse than just a bad story.

The biggest reason Final Fantasy 7 received so much praise when it came out was that it was the first real contact western gamers had with the series and that type of game in general. It wasn't really known too well around here by the large majority of gamers, and it was completely different from anything ever seen on the west, so it was a pretty big surprise. There's nothing particularly amazing about the storyline in 7 when compared to the rest of the series though. The game right before it, 6, really pushed the boundaries of stories in that sort of game(considering this was made in the SNES era of mario-esque platformers, shooters and adventure games), but it never got much recognition here mainly because it wasn't marketed here at all.

The thing you really have to understand about japanese RPGs is that only recently they've been starting to "Westernize" themselves. Japanese storytelling has very very different roots than western storytelling, so it really will be hard to understand them if you look at them in the same way you look at games like Baldur's Gate. If you don't remember these stories being very good, chances are you weren't really looking at it in the right way back when you last remember playing it. You should try playing any of those games again now, this time paying very close attention everything that happens within the story.

They like adding several nuances and connections in the storyline that aren't that easy to notice the first time you're playing it if you're not used to that kind of storytelling. This has already happened to me with so many games now, I'm beginning to lose count: I first played the game years ago when I was younger and just enjoyed it for the gameplay. When I play the game again now, I start noticing tons and tons of extra depth in the storyline that I just had never noticed before, simply because I wasn't used to it and I was too young to appreciate things like that.

There's plenty of examples(and [Spoiler warning goes here], if you've never played these games before, skip to the next paragraph): in Final Fantasy VIII, if you pay attention to the way the characters talk to each other near the end of the game, you'll notice that they're basically telling you that Laguna is Squall's father. In another part of the game ( a bit earlier), if you follow the storyline, you'll notice that Ultimecia (the villain you fight at the end of the game) isn't just some random person - it's actually Rinoa. Hell, for Xenogears they even realeased a book in Japan(in japanese only, unfortunatly - there's a partial translation of it here) that went into detail into everything about the storyline that they put into the game, especially the things people might have failed to notice. When you play the game again after reading it, you notice that it actually is all there, you just might have not realized it the first time.

To put it in other words, I guess you could say that JRPG storylines are sort of an acquired taste. You really have to be around them for a while to start appreciating everything they have in them, because the best parts are usually not obvious from the get-go. Only recently with FF12 they've started to move away from that type of storytelling, in an attempt to lure in more western gamers that just don't identify with that.

The real problems I have with Japanese games(...):
1. Savepoints
2. Repetition
3. Rough bosses
4. Rough bosses

Not being able to save everywhere makes it actually matter how you do in the dungeon before you get to the boss and it makes the entire thing a part of a whole, instead of isolating the boss fight and the dungeon as two separate events. In other words, it's part of the challenge.

I'm not sure what you mean about the repetition and the rough bosses though. Any specific game you're talking about? Most RPG games are fairly easy on the normal storyline (especially the newer ones). Generally the only "cheap" bosses are the optional ones, which are meant to be like that as part of the challenge of killing them, since they're usually at the end of the game. I can't remember the last time I fought a regular boss in an RPG game that relied on luck and not on figuring out how to counter the boss's attacks.

Say, for example, you're fighting the Emerald or Ruby weapon boss in FF7 - sometimes they'll do some attack that will normally kill your entire party in a single turn. If you have someone equipped with with the right materia though, you can prevent it from killing you (Final Attack + Phoenix, for example, which casts Phoenix when you die, reviving you in turn). Figuring out how to fight in a situation like that is part of the challenge of these fights though. I'm glad they exist, especially since RPGs seem to be getting easier and easier latetly.

</wall o' text>

I bought Rogue Galaxy, but the more I'm into it, the more I see how the story is stretched to get more hours of combat.

The whole universe is supported by a good mood, though it feels like they had put everything that's been done about space opera and fantasy into one big pot, shuffle, and got something.
Actually, it feels kinda weak.

The worst part is when you look attentively, each reason for why you're stuck somewhere and have to fight countless repetitive enemies is utterly stupid.

Even the story itself is, in fact, boring. You're just a young blonde guy stuck on a desert planet. Then a guy gives you a sword and two bounty hunters who were looking for this guy, actually think you're him because of the sword.

From there, it's just the young guy wanting to visit space.
Ah, of course, there's the traditional war between two factions in the background.

I merely play it for the fact that I bought it, and when I want to relax, I have that game to finish. Besides, the combats mechanics are dynamic enough so even the repetition slides down easily.

That said, characters are both interesting and clichés. There's a robot, a rogue guy, a dark haired cutie, a sort of mole in a suit, and you. Plus of course, the sexy amazone after the first world you visit.

...

Arbre:
I bought Rogue Galaxy, but the more I'm into it, the more I see how the story is stretched to get more hours of combat.

The whole universe is supported by a good mood, though it feels like they had put everything that's been done about space opera and fantasy into one big pot, shuffle, and got something.
Actually, it feels kinda weak.

The worst part is when you look attentively, each reason for why you're stuck somewhere and have to fight countless repetitive enemies is utterly stupid.

Even the story itself is, in fact, boring. You're just a young blonde guy stuck on a desert planet. Then a guy gives you a sword and two bounty hunters who were looking for this guy, actually think you're him because of the sword.

From there, it's just the young guy wanting to visit space.
Ah, of course, there's the traditional war between two factions in the background.

I merely play it for the fact that I bought it, and when I want to relax, I have that game to finish. Besides, the combats mechanics are dynamic enough so even the repetition slides down easily.

That said, characters are both interesting and clichés. There's a robot, a rogue guy, a dark haired cutie, a sort of mole in a suit, and you. Plus of course, the sexy amazone after the first world you visit.

...

I love Rouge Galaxy, but that's mostly because I feel the developer Level 5 can do no wrong, especially after Dark Cloud 2. I'll admit there's plenty of cliches, but Rouge Galaxy does cliche right.

Ranzel:
I remeber in one of the PS2 Final Fantasies, althought this is probably in all FF games, there was this one boss who just had a move blatantly called "Death". As the name suggests, it killed the recipient of the move. To make a short story shorter, I never beat the guy, and actually gave up on the game as such.

That's nothing. I recall a tree-like boss in Final Fantasy 9 who could cast Death on each of your party members in one move. Mercifully, the spell had a tendency to miss, so it usually wouldn't wipe out your entire party. Unmercifully, the boss casted it fairly often. It was frickin ridiculous.

On the main topic: some Japanese games have a weirdness that I've grown accustomed to, but still don't understand. Why is it that characters in Japanese animation always have huge saucer-eyes, while Japanese people have narrow slit eyes? What's with the uber complex plots that some Japanese games have? I swear I'd need a flowchart to figure out what the heck happened at the end of Metal Gear Solid 2. Then there's completely off-the-wall games like Katamari Damacy that usually don't get released in America. Where does this weirdness come from? Does it come in pill form?

Kaelan:
Not being able to save everywhere makes it actually matter how you do in the dungeon before you get to the boss and it makes the entire thing a part of a whole, instead of isolating the boss fight and the dungeon as two separate events. In other words, it's part of the challenge.

I don't think you can attribute that to lack of being able to save anywhere. That is more dependent on level design than anything. The boss fight is probably going to depend on how well I went through the dungeon regardless of where or when I saved.

Kaelan:
I'm not sure what you mean about the repetition and the rough bosses though.

The repetition is more of an end result of other annoying aspects of Japanese RPGs:
1. Lack of appropriate save points or save anywhere system -> Repeat chunks of the game I utterly stomp, just to get to the actual part I'm having problems with. This means I'm having to tack on 5+ minutes of grunt work to get around a 30-45 second issue. A good analogy being a horrendous case of wave per wave diarrhea: The annoyance is the fact you have to race to restroom, drop your drawers, and dock with the porcelain throne. The troublesome part is the unyielding torrent being released that Yellowstone's Old Faithful would be proud of. Now... when the next wave hits, what state you like to resume in? Docked and ready... or doing the clenched cheek triathlon to the facilities?

2. Repeated trips to distant locations to another distant location... then back again... and to another distant location... and... -> I like the fact I'm taking the unbeaten path in many games. The unfortunate part is that I usually end up beating the path into the dirt so much so, I can't figure out the reason why the local municipality hasn't paved the thing and littered it with toll booths. I swear it's like they've taken Dykstra's shortest path algorithm, negated it, and based the flow of the game completely around it. If the same kind of work flow was implemented into your daily life, you'd completely lose it. It's like someone doing their 10 page long shopping list, line per line, and not bothering to group items by store at the very least.

3. Boss Super Attack a.k.a. "The Bitch Maker" is the second most powerful spell attack in the game... And the boss has somehow figured a way to make his spell wand into a belt-fed rape wagon of doom. Tag, you're it. -> A Super attack should be something that's used with a conservative mindset. The unfortunate part is that many Japanese RPGs like the crank up the difficulty by increasing the amount of times this super attack is unleashed. The issue is that the reason for the enemy using the attack more often is not given, but the boss will just use it more often. And more often than not the attack isn't used any more intelligently, either. So it becomes more of a game of chance rather than strategy, unless "hoping to dodge" alone is considered a strategy. If the bosses just used the same frequency, but just a bit more choosy about when to use it, I'd be fine with that. I wouldn't mind getting stomped because the boss noticed my party was all collectively tapped out and whipped out the super attack before my party recovered. That's something I can logically avoid next time. But, that's hardly the case. I mean the spell's side effect upon the caster could be the feeling of an igniting match placed onto every nerve ending in your body and the bastard boss is flinging them out like a masochist quenching a dopamine drought.

While most storyline bosses aren't bad, I always like going for full completion of the game. Unfortunately I have to stop, put the game down for a few weeks after working myself into a fever pitch fit of rage, find the parts and pieces to the controller, and solder and glue it all back together... and clean/paint over the scorch marks from the surrounding walls from the Anime/Manga-esque energy eruption that seems to make it's appearance when I hit my limit. If it wasn't for my heating bill savings being offset by cleaning supply purchases and the effort of finding another couch off the street to replaced the burnt one, I wouldn't mind it too much.