Netto first got me thinking when he reported the eroge industry to be in a state of peril, but I’ve been puting it off until this past weekend, when I (finally) finished Persona 4 and got started on my UK version of Agarest Wars. As one might guess, those two games are very much on the topic here.

Tears to Tiara Visual Novel on the PS3 (those graphics aren’t bad at all)

The boundaries between JRPGs and Visual Novels has always been blurred. After all, IGN recently identified the JRPG “talking cardboard cutout” tradition in their Top 10 Ways to Fix JRPGs, and the most recognizable image of Visual Novels has got to be that windowed screenshot of bishoujo character CGs atop a classroom background with dialogue box beneath it. Not to mention, there are Visnov producers like Alice-soft (Rance) and that branch of Leaf/Aquaplus (Tears to Tiara, Utawarerumono) who seems to specialize in importing RPG elements into their Visnovs. But combining JRPG and Visnov elements goes far deeper than just the graphics corner-cutting of presentation or the addition of a basic combat system.

IGN’s list might be overly biased in my opinion, handing out criticism against many aspects of JRPGs that fans specifically play and love the genre for. Two comebacks that reached my mind right away are: (to #7) if I wanted a full-scale world for escapism exploration, I’d go play a freaking MMO, and (to #4) Tales of Vesperia actually reminds us that we have real, live friends sitting besides us rather than relying on netfriends on the other side of the World. But they do address a number of good points, such as:

• JRPGs are filled with stupid fillers like block puzzles that have no real enjoyment value other than contributing to the number of headwalls in frustration gameplay hours.
• Overuse of cliched story concepts and archtypical character designs, many of which lack creative detailing and thus remains flat and stale throughout the game.

Would it be presumptuous of me to say that the game industry can benefit from importing some visnov concepts here? Take Shin Megami Tensei’s Persona 4 for example. With the premise of you are a high-schooler who recently moved to a backwater local town where mysterious murders have began occurring, it sounds very much like the beginning of Higurashi. But while P4’s storyline is interesting, it’s nowhere as remarkable as that of Higurashi, and the antagonists are somewhat cliche in a modern Japanese way. At the same time, its combat system is as outdated as that of Final Fantasy X. However, the flawless integration of its social link system, combined with a few hilarious school trip events stuck into the main story, shows just how much extra value and enjoyment a game stands to gain by absorbing some visual novel elements. In my opinion, the characters really are the most appealing aspect of P4, which also explains why it took me under a month to play 90% of the game and finish all social links, then three more just to grind through the last dungeons and beat that final boss.

P4’s cast on a school trip…

P4’s Social Links are pretty much a glorified way of presenting character routes. In Persona 4, the main character can initiate a social link very much the same way you trigger that first flag in dating sims. As you proceed down each social link, you learn about the character’s circumstances, their complexities and problems, and helps them solve their issues. This all sounds pretty familiar, after all it’s pretty much the same deal as most heroine arcs in visual novels. The only difference is that it’s an optional feature stuck into a fully interactive RPG game. It’s not a required feature, so you can still beat the game without reading pages upon pages of text if the action and main story is all that you’re looking for. But for those of us seeking detailed character development, it allows players to choose the routes they care about while avoiding those they don’t, and at the same time gain some bonuses that will make the gameplay easier. P4 also allows you to simultaneously go through multiple social links, so you don’t have to play through that long common route over and over again (although having multiple lovers may trigger… consequences).

The Persona series are hardly the only ones that take advantage of these elements. The Tales of series have skits and chardev-related backtracking measured in the tons. The Star Ocean series have their private actions and alternate endings. But… there’s still a lot to gain by kicking it up a notch. Yes, the eroge industry has their own faults in bland storytelling, cliched characters, and excessive use of moe appeal. But the use of detailed writing, the depiction of day to day events (amidst an epic story to save the world), the relationship branching, and the concentrated dose of humor injection scenes goes a long way in getting the game’s players in touch with their characters.

Here are a few obvious advantages:

• Detailed storytelling in the main route adds more enjoyable gameplay time without driving the user nuts with useless puzzles whose only purpose is to ‘get in the way’. The storytelling scenes of Metal Gear and Xenosaga series may be quite excessive, but they’re a lot more memorable than *that dungeon* in any Final Fantasy. Using ‘cardboard cutout’ storytelling also means that you don’t have to break cinematic budgets to insert a proper story. Not to mention that by detailing out the story, the main plot also gains more opportunities to break out of that cliche shell.
• Detailed storytelling in the side routes sculpt a far more rounded view of the characters and their world to players who are interested. In a sense it’s just like an optional sidequest, except it also contributes greatly to character and setting development, an accomplishment few sidequests can claim. This is the one advantage games can easily use but ‘novels’ can’t: optional supporting materials integrated alongside the story that contribute, but doesn’t forcefully slow down the pace. It’s an advantage they really ought to be using. One good example of this in JRPGs are the special mission chapters in Valkyria Chronicles, although they could have used a lot more of those.
• Relationships pathing grants the player more control over the story, even if it’s merely the underlying details. Western RPGs, such as anything made by Bioware (e.g. Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect) are particularly good at letting the players choose the direction they wish to proceed in and which potential love interest the main character gets together with; I don’t get what’s taking Japan, with their fame in interactive choose-your-heroine visual novels, to catch up on in most of their own RPGs.

So yes, I’m one who would definitely support some joint-projects and merging between the games and visual novel industries. The visnov people excel more in 2D graphics, detailed character interaction, and drama storyboarding, while the game developers’ skill obviously lay in presentation interface, programming, and mechanics. It would be a symbiotic relationship for them to work together: get the visnov appeal to further into the international market, while allowing the gamers to appreciate more intriguing stories and characters with better buildup and detailed development.

In an ideal world…

Valkyria’s cropped 3D character graphics in dialogue (I had trouble finding English ver. for some reason)

Of course, there are sectors of the JRPG industry that are already incorporating these aspects, be in on a large or small scale. One of the notable ‘recent’ combination between the two genres would be Records of Agarest War, which came out in Japan in 2007 but is still awaiting its Spring 2010 US release. Better known as “that soul-breeding game” to Kotaku, Agarest War is a quintessential offspring between a hardcore strategy RPG and a dating-sim. It’s the merge I’ve been hoping for, yet at the same time completely not what I wanted. Why? Because just like how sectors of the visnov industry lives off solely moe appeal, Agarest War seems to be marketing only on its sex appeal. It’s precisely how not to merge visnov elements into a video game. Okay, it has a very interesting battle system that seriously tickles my brain as far as combat positioning, the core of TRPGs, go; but at the same time it’s flooded with flaws:

• The critics aren’t kidding when they claim that the battle graphics of this game could be handled on a PS1, but I guess they’re going for that Disgea look.
• Compared to a modern visual novel, the character CGs and event CGs are rather bland, lacking in variations and any emotional portrayal. I swear there’s like only 1 pose for each.
• The dialogue is just stupid: “Don’t get too far ahead so I can protect you.” / “I don’t need your protection.” / “I want to protect you so stay close.” (facepalm). Well, I guess at least it’s not outright annoying to the point of making my ears bleed like the characters of Star Ocean 4.
• Hopefully the US release will put more money into Quality Assurance after the translations, cause currently I can’t even upgrade my daggers because they typed the blacksmithing recipe wrong, and they’re not the only case…

Basically, Agarest Wars is decent as a TRPG, it might be close enough to a dating-sim (don’t know enough about them), but calling it a visual novel would be… an insult to visual novels.

Now if only Valkyria Chronicles had more of their special report chapters with either goofy or melodramatic scenes, chained together to provide fully told subarcs for each major character, then that would have been so much better.

Whatever, at least I have Persona 3 Portable coming out this summer to hype about, where I can play the heroine this time yay~!