Dragon quest was a product of it's time. It should have stayed there.
Holy shit who actually still plays turn based JRPGS where your party stands in a line and there is no tactical depth or engaging gameplay whatsoever. The people that still play those are mostly soy goblins playing shitty waifu gatcha games, which are only that way because it's low effort and low skill required to make and play.
Now I'm not saying enix made square retarded, they're perfectly capable of shooting themselves in the foot on their own. I'm just saying holding up mainline dragon quest as good is ridiculous. And final fantasy tries to evolve past that original style, which only existed because of technological limitations.
Hell that DS game with the giant tanks where you played as a slime was better than every single mainline DQ game. The spinoffs that actually try to do something better are way better than mainline DQ.
And the ones where you control one singular character doing the exact same thing, with AIs controlling the rest of the party, where you have just as much input as before but one fourth the thought and foresight required, are SO much better.
I wasn't claiming final fantasy specifically was a good example, but they did try to do better. The system you describe is an action game, which is at least less boring and has been executed far better. .hack, back in 03, had that kind of system only you controlled all three party members in real time by giving detailed orders to the other two while playing as kite. That was infinitely better than anything in the "three niggas in a line" genre. And later there was a few years where the vast majority of JRPGs were on a movement board like fire emblem, which again, far superior in depth. Other JRPGs have your turns playing out in a time based manner - eternal sonata did this. Heck, the world ends with you could be called a JRPG, and it was fantastic with simultaneously controlling two characters.
Dragon quest is a boring, shit game that aged like milk and only autistics, incompetents and major nostalgiafags actually like it.
Even dragon quest side games do way better than actual DQ. That ds game was DQ rocket slime, and it was amazing. DQ heroes is a serviceable musou game. Regular DQ and literally any JRPG that is still just "three niggas in a line" is such low effort trash that it would be better just skipping the meaningless padding "gameplay" to be a VN.
Have you considered you are experiencing a major dunning-Kruger moment as regards turn based strategy and its countless millions of fans? Not every turn based game is balanced like Pokemon or Paper Mario.
Turn based strategy is not "three niggas in a line". That genre is like fire emblem or other S-JRPGs. Hell, pokemon actually has more depth than DQ, if you look into the absolute shenanigans the competitive crowd gets up to. I'm not into those but it's at least better than dragon quest. And paper mario thousand year door was better than DQ as well.
The irony of this shitty argument is that action based actually predates turn based. JRPGs started with games like Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, and even Zelda which all had action based combat. It wasn't until Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy 1 which both kickstarted turn based JRPGs, so no there is nothing new or revolutionary about action RPGs.
Your opinion on Dragon Quest is subjective, so there is no point in me trying to convince you. My initial point was that Enix wasn't behind trying to make all their JRPGs have the same gameplay as the Mana series, they were actually the traditional ones while the Square side which was bleeding all the old talent at the time was just trying to reach normies by making action games instead of RPGs.
Also Dragon Quest 11 and Persona 5 each sold millions worldwide, so yeah there is an audience for it. I like Paper Mario and Pokemon, but to me those are just comfort food games with very simplistic rock/paper/scissor mechanics, theres hardly any resource management or really much strategy outside of who gets to hit harder first. Dragon Quest at least has a job system, skill trees, equipment/resource management, crafting systems, and a steeper difficulty that prioritizes MP conservation over just spamming OP moves.
I tried to play Xenoblade 2 due to all the hype, but the game just felt so monotonous to me where I was spamming the same flashy moves over and over again with my AI party auto healing me, the risk/reward factor wasn't there and it felt like I was just watching a light show.
Call of duty dominated the shooter market and it was still dogshit. I didn't say there weren't millions of autistic elevens that will keep buying that trash, look at the mobile market. I said it was outdated and bad.
Action games have evolved, JRPGs as a whole have evolved, DQ is stuck in a system that only exists because they didn't have the skill or capacity to make better ones.
Xenoblade is not very good, tbh. I only played the first one and it was terrible MMO combat with severe level scaling issues. That combat system was an abortion. That is an example of making a bad game. Fire up an emulator and play the original .hack games.
There's no real strategy in DQ, don't bullshit me. Grind till you're the right level, heal when you need it and press A for big attacks on bosses. Pokemon doesn't have strategy in the PVE component at all - it only does on the competitive level, which doesn't exist for DQ. Thousand year door wasn't difficult, it was just interesting rather than simply "three niggas in a line".
Anyone that can't clear a DQ game is literally braindead. It's a timesink to pad the length of the story and get you invested in it. Satisfying autismos and elevens' desire to grind for numbers going up doesn't mean it's actually quality.
And persona literally sells entirely because of the waifus and story. It's a VN. It's better than DQ at least because it goes all in on that aspect of it, but the gameplay is not any measure of good.
Dragon quest was a product of it's time. It should have stayed there.
Holy shit who actually still plays turn based JRPGS where your party stands in a line and there is no tactical depth or engaging gameplay whatsoever. The people that still play those are mostly soy goblins playing shitty waifu gatcha games, which are only that way because it's low effort and low skill required to make and play.
Now I'm not saying enix made square retarded, they're perfectly capable of shooting themselves in the foot on their own. I'm just saying holding up mainline dragon quest as good is ridiculous. And final fantasy tries to evolve past that original style, which only existed because of technological limitations.
Hell that DS game with the giant tanks where you played as a slime was better than every single mainline DQ game. The spinoffs that actually try to do something better are way better than mainline DQ.
"No tactical depth"
And the ones where you control one singular character doing the exact same thing, with AIs controlling the rest of the party, where you have just as much input as before but one fourth the thought and foresight required, are SO much better.
I wasn't claiming final fantasy specifically was a good example, but they did try to do better. The system you describe is an action game, which is at least less boring and has been executed far better. .hack, back in 03, had that kind of system only you controlled all three party members in real time by giving detailed orders to the other two while playing as kite. That was infinitely better than anything in the "three niggas in a line" genre. And later there was a few years where the vast majority of JRPGs were on a movement board like fire emblem, which again, far superior in depth. Other JRPGs have your turns playing out in a time based manner - eternal sonata did this. Heck, the world ends with you could be called a JRPG, and it was fantastic with simultaneously controlling two characters.
Dragon quest is a boring, shit game that aged like milk and only autistics, incompetents and major nostalgiafags actually like it.
Even dragon quest side games do way better than actual DQ. That ds game was DQ rocket slime, and it was amazing. DQ heroes is a serviceable musou game. Regular DQ and literally any JRPG that is still just "three niggas in a line" is such low effort trash that it would be better just skipping the meaningless padding "gameplay" to be a VN.
Have you considered you are experiencing a major dunning-Kruger moment as regards turn based strategy and its countless millions of fans? Not every turn based game is balanced like Pokemon or Paper Mario.
Turn based strategy is not "three niggas in a line". That genre is like fire emblem or other S-JRPGs. Hell, pokemon actually has more depth than DQ, if you look into the absolute shenanigans the competitive crowd gets up to. I'm not into those but it's at least better than dragon quest. And paper mario thousand year door was better than DQ as well.
The irony of this shitty argument is that action based actually predates turn based. JRPGs started with games like Dragon Slayer, Hydlide, and even Zelda which all had action based combat. It wasn't until Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy 1 which both kickstarted turn based JRPGs, so no there is nothing new or revolutionary about action RPGs.
Your opinion on Dragon Quest is subjective, so there is no point in me trying to convince you. My initial point was that Enix wasn't behind trying to make all their JRPGs have the same gameplay as the Mana series, they were actually the traditional ones while the Square side which was bleeding all the old talent at the time was just trying to reach normies by making action games instead of RPGs.
Also Dragon Quest 11 and Persona 5 each sold millions worldwide, so yeah there is an audience for it. I like Paper Mario and Pokemon, but to me those are just comfort food games with very simplistic rock/paper/scissor mechanics, theres hardly any resource management or really much strategy outside of who gets to hit harder first. Dragon Quest at least has a job system, skill trees, equipment/resource management, crafting systems, and a steeper difficulty that prioritizes MP conservation over just spamming OP moves.
I tried to play Xenoblade 2 due to all the hype, but the game just felt so monotonous to me where I was spamming the same flashy moves over and over again with my AI party auto healing me, the risk/reward factor wasn't there and it felt like I was just watching a light show.
Call of duty dominated the shooter market and it was still dogshit. I didn't say there weren't millions of autistic elevens that will keep buying that trash, look at the mobile market. I said it was outdated and bad.
Action games have evolved, JRPGs as a whole have evolved, DQ is stuck in a system that only exists because they didn't have the skill or capacity to make better ones.
Xenoblade is not very good, tbh. I only played the first one and it was terrible MMO combat with severe level scaling issues. That combat system was an abortion. That is an example of making a bad game. Fire up an emulator and play the original .hack games.
There's no real strategy in DQ, don't bullshit me. Grind till you're the right level, heal when you need it and press A for big attacks on bosses. Pokemon doesn't have strategy in the PVE component at all - it only does on the competitive level, which doesn't exist for DQ. Thousand year door wasn't difficult, it was just interesting rather than simply "three niggas in a line".
Anyone that can't clear a DQ game is literally braindead. It's a timesink to pad the length of the story and get you invested in it. Satisfying autismos and elevens' desire to grind for numbers going up doesn't mean it's actually quality.
And persona literally sells entirely because of the waifus and story. It's a VN. It's better than DQ at least because it goes all in on that aspect of it, but the gameplay is not any measure of good.
I mostly agree with everything you say here. I think I missed that you were trying not to umbrella all these things.