The full article with screenshots and miscellaneous tid-bits was originally posted on the game design blog Significant-Bits.
Introduction
Having grown up with JRPGs, it's somewhat surprising how rarely I play them these days. That desire for a wondrous epic is still there, but pursuing new titles usually results in a feeling of slogging through manufactured bloat. The introductory segments are often filled with painfully-gated progression, overenthusiastic tutorials, and a juvenile narrative. In the limited instances where the opening is great, the overall game-loop tends to sputter out into protracted tedium. In either case, I quickly lose interest.
This general reaction to modern JPRGs must have a lot to do with growing up and having less free time, a lower tolerance for anime tropes, and no emotional attachment to the new series. But hasn't the genre improved overall? Weren't the older games just grind-fests burdened with copious amounts of random battles?
To help answer that question, I thought it would be interesting to quantify some of the less subjectives elements of JRPGs, starting with the 4th generation of consoles.
Methodology
My approach was to replay the first 2 hours of the more renowned JRPGs released in North America and measure the amount of time it took to reach various gameplay-milestones in each one. To avoid the more contentious titles occasionally placed under the JRPG umbrealla, I only included games with multiple controllable party members, a turn-based battle system, and a character-driven narrative.
Despite having played many of these games in the past, I only had a vague recollection of most and attempted to emulate a first-time, completionist experience. I talked to every NPC, entered every building, brought up every menu, and skipped no cutscenes or dialogue. I did, however, increase text-display and walking speeds wherever possible.
My main goal was to measure two elements, Time to Freedom (TTF), and Time to Comfort (TTC). I define Time to Freedom as the first time the player gets to interact with the game in any way beyond simply advancing cutscenes, and Time to Comfort as the amount of time it takes to experience all applicable gameplay-milestones within a 2 hour limit. These two metrics are meant to show how quickly the player can start experimenting with the game, and how long it takes to experience its main mechanics and gain a certain sense of mastery over them. Additionally, I noted each game's Freedom to Comfort (FTC), defined as the difference between TTC and TTF.
The common gameplay milestones consisted of the following:
Mobility - first time the player gains control over their avatar.
Save - first time the player is allowed to save their game. If an auto-save feature with an indicator is included, I will attempt to note its first use.
Item - first time the player manually obtains a usable item.
Rest - first time the player can manually and repeatedly recover all HP/MP/etc., typically by staying at an inn.
Combat - first time the player enters an interactive battle.
Travel - first time the player gains access to the overworld map or reaches a hub area that can transition to multiple other nodes.
Level-Up - first time a character's statistic increases, typically through leveling up.
Dungeon - first time the player enters a geographically-distinct area that focuses on traversal and combat.
Ability - first time a character gains a new spell or ability (meant to be used in or out of combat).
Gear - first time the player manually obtains an equipment upgrade.
Companion - first time the player encounters a character who joins the party and can participate in battles, level up, etc. (i.e., not a temporary companion).
Boss - first time the player encounters a unique and powerful enemy.
A few other elements such as vehicles and minigames were not included as they were either not common enough or typically appeared in the mid to late stages of a game. In addition, I provided a bit of context for each title, highlighting what made it stand out from other JRPGs, and contributed a bit of analysis on the milestone results.
Finally, I am limiting each console cycle to 10 games and sorting them chronologically by original release date (usually in Japan) in order to give a better idea of the genre's progression.
Final Fantasy IV - July 19, 1991
My first JRPG and a landmark title in the genre. It injected a bit of dynamism to turn-based combat via the Active Time Battle system, and managed to take a narrative step forward by creating plot-related story arcs for all party members. It's also known for having a fairly brisk pace, partially credited to lots of content being cut.
Further cuts were made to the North American release removing various items and characters skills, but even this eroded version was ultimately deemed as too complex by SquareSoft. Consequently this led to the development of the much-maligned Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest in order to introduce JRPGs to the West. Mystic Quest fared even worse, but eventually Final Fantasy IV gained enough popularity to warrant various re-releases, a remake, and even an episodic (albeit not as fondly received) sequel.
I remembered Final Fantasy IV's intro as rather long, but apparently it didn't even last 5 minutes. Part of this might be the fact that dialogue popups (unusually located at the top of the screen, not the bottom) appear without any delays, and multiple characters' lines can be displayed in the box at one time. The TTF is still a bit deceptive as once the mobility milestone is hit, the player has to sit through various cutscenes and expository sequences before being deposited on the overworld map.
Once the restraints are fully off, FF IV hits an excellent pace in terms of both gameplay and narrative. Random battles are fairly frequent, but running away is always an option -- with the additional risk of losing money -- and level-grinding is not required. Party members come and go very quickly, and the plot continuously unfolds at each turn.
The only outlier is the first equipment upgrade that comes unusually late as the weapons/armour shop is closed in the first town, and there's no gear to collect in the first dungeon.
FTC: 32:43
Lunar: The Silver Star - June 26, 1992
I was a little surprised to see the original Lunar appear so early on the list, but in retrospect it makes sense. By 1991, various "multimedia" heavy games such as Cosmic Fantasy were coming out on Japanese PCs and the CD-ROM² System.
Lunar: TSS was the Mega CD's flagship JRPG, and its North American publisher, Working Designs, created a port known for a fair amount of changes. Extra humour and pop culture references were sprinkled in, and the packaging itself included various extras to position it as a premium title. The Silver Star was successful enough to turn Lunar into a franchise, spawning a sequel, various spinoffs, and multiple ports and remakes.
Despite the multimedia experience being a large selling point, Lunar: TSS started off fairly quickly, mainly due to its voiced and animated intro playing before the title screen. From there, it took very little time to get some items, a few companions, and go out exploring. Menus and dialogues displayed instantly so there were no unnecessary delays, although movement was a bit tricky as the game auto-pathed whenever the party ran into a collidable obstacle. Keeping a direction pressed down made the party hug the wall and keep going, making it at times difficult to properly line up with interactive elements such as NPCs and treasure chests, especially when they were close together.
Combat included movement and attack animations so it was a bit slower than its contemporaries, but it didn't drag on with overly involved spell sequences. Random encounters were truly random in terms of frequency, but the overworld was littered with HP/MP restoring statues so I was never in any real danger.
Lunar: TSS' only outlier was its first boss battle, which came fairly late into the game. It was also quite difficult and required a bit of grinding as the boss was only susceptible to magic and the protagonist unlocked his spell-potential right before the boss' dungeon. The remakes of the game changed this up quite a bit, adding more boss battles and altering the narrative-driven party composition.
FTC: 1:51:16
Phantasy Star IV: The End of the Millennium - December 17, 1993
Phantasy Star was Sega's main JRPG for their other console, the Mega Drive, and The End of the Millenium was the final entry in the series. Despite not relying on a CD-ROM for storage, it featured lots of animated characters and enemies, and copious amounts of pixel art stills for its manga-esque cinematic sequences.
The high production values and epic scope did a lot to wash away the negative reception of Phantasy Star III, but it wasn't enough to keep the series going. The Phantasy Star IP was eventually used again, but this time for a series of real-time, squad-based online games rather than a traditional JRPG.
