You’ve hit the nail on the head there. Glad it’s not just me then. Feel like I’ve accidentally stired up a hornets nest starting this thread.
It’s ok if you don’t like Japanese games or JRPGs, but you should understand their importance for the ecosystem.
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Sure, the more diversity in games the better, since joining gamepass I’ve discovered loads of great games I would never have tried before. I just never understood the absolute love for JRPGs and was wondering what I was missing, that was what my original aim was for this thread before it turned into what it is now, probably due to my poor wording of my original question.
They have cutscenes yeah but they’re more focused on action and horror. If the games sound like something you’re interested in I suggest trying Resident Evil 2, it’s a remake of the original RE2 that released in 1998. It’s arguably the best RE out right now.
I dont like Final Fantasy either.
Anyways if you want to try strategy japanese rpg’s you may be pleasantly surprised. For old school i highly recomend Shining Force 1,2 and 3. If you want a modern japanese SRPG then play Valkyria Chronicles 1 and 4. VC2 is not as good but its still fun. Also note that its harder to hunt down.
You’re catching a lot of flack, but I’m somewhat inclined to agree.
Of course I realize “Japanese” is not a genre, but in my experience I also tend to dislike a disproportionate number of games from that country. Maybe it’s something about Japanese sensibilities that just don’t click for me. I don’t know.
Well, one thing I do know is that I intensely dislike the traditional anime art style. The hair, the eyes, the mouths… it’s just not for me, at all. Any game that employs that art style is usually an instant skip for me.
Apart from the anime art style, what don’t I like?
For starters, I really don’t care for the most Japanese of all genres, the JRPG. Regardless of art style, I generally find them quite dull. I thought I’d like Octopath Traveler, but I only lasted a couple of hours. It just didn’t keep me interested.
I also find many JRPGs to be melodramatic to the extreme. Although, come to think of it, that seems to not be dependent on genre. I have some tolerance for melodrama in something like Eternal Sonata, which I finally completed last year, but even Ace Combat has nauseating levels of it, and that’s just unnecessary.
But aside from JRPGs, I’m also not particularly fond of fighters or shoot-em-ups. The latter I straight up detest.
Oh, and there’s a cheerfulness in many Japanese games that I find pretty obnoxious too. I’m talking garish colour schemes, hyper cheery voices, overly cutesy character designs…
Anyway, I think I’ve made my grumpy point.
To cap off, I’ll point out that there are plenty of Japanese games that I really like, too. It’s just that on average, I definitely gravitate more towards Western game design sensibilities.
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Personally, I’m quite fond of endless boring dialogue and schoolgirls in short dresses.
Appreciate the recommendations, but due to my previous comments I’m reluctant to buy any games and would probably only try games on gamepass for now. I bought a jrpg on switch that everybody was raving about on switch and hated every second of it.
Yakuza Like a Dragon. It has great English voice acting, modern graphics, fun characters, and classic jrpg gameplay. I recommend you start there as Yakuza Like a Dragon is easily the best game of the series.
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Each to their own, I’m not judging you honest.
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Get Tekken 7 
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Play Earth Defense Force and have the best time you could possibly have playing a videogame. 
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There’s an interesting conversation here. I am noticing some of the ones saying they aren’t really into/can’t get into “Japanese games” are people who seem to say they’ve been gaming since Atari/the 70s.
For me, I am in my early 20s and, well, just look at my profile picture… JRPGs are my favorite genre. I enjoy the bombastic soundtracks, over-the-top attack animations, for some the overly cheerful characters and rainbow color palate is repellant, for me I’m all over it, some tropes I really like such as “fighting god at the end” lol.
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Theres a lot dull jrpgs around as well. Maybe try persona. Its as good as those anime jrpgs will get
If youre first jrpg is something like a xenoblade 2. I can understand why youd hate them.
You probably mean “anime styled games” or something. Japanese games like Sonic, Resident Evil, Mario, animal crossing, metal gear solid and many more are probably games you enjoy or are familiar with.
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It’s weird cuz there were entire generations that were overwhelmingly Japanese, like everything before Xbox. Unless they are people that came from PC gaming.
Yep, for sure. Even I do not like EVERY JRPG
I was told this series was really good and it even had “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam. Hated it and dropped it (very rare for me to drop a game). Haven’t tried it again since 2017. Unfortunately I went over the refund time limit of 2 hours so that was $10 wasted.
Hyperdimension is the turd of the genre. Awfl awful series.
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I wouldn’t say overwhelmingly japanese. I grew up with the SNES then went onto the N64. I didn’t play Final Fantasy until I got a PS2. I lived in UK so we didn’t get all the JRPGS from the sNES era or they weren’t talked about.
If were talking japanese games like Mario and zelda…but they were just normal games for me. coudln’t distinguish between Japanese and western and N64 had shit ton of AAA western games from Turok, Goldeneye, Banjo etc…
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Ouch well, I bought it when it was on sale. I kinda enjoy the first game but didn’t finish it yet. Well I know people have different tastes on JRPG. My favorite JRPG is Tales of Berseria because it inspires me and I decided to write a story about an anti-hero or villain protagonist.
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