I'm a huge Turn based RPG fan, ever since my dad bought me Mario & Luigi Partners in time thinking it was Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga but for DS, your average fan would say it was the saddest mistake ever, but for little me it was the best thing ever, until then I always saw Mario as this funny little guy jumping and grabbing mushrooms to save the princess in this wacky kingdom, but seeing him and Luigi kicking alien butt in this story which had a tone I HAVE NEVER EVER SEEN in any Mario related media made me appreciate RPGs, specially its mechanics and stories. Through all my life I tried lots of Turn Based RPGs, like Dragon Quest, Earthbound, Paper Mario, Chrono Trigger, Pokémon, Shin Megami Tensei and of course, the love of my life, Final Fantasy.
But all my life, specially through late 2000's and early to mid 2010's I was always faced with these type of individuals which held RPGs in very low regards. But these were no regular individuals, we all have our preferences in genres for video games, right? I love RPGs, Platformers and also Roguelikes and I personally do not like RTS games like Starcraft or Age of Empires or Survival games as I prefer more tailored experiences than games where you make your own fun (And I never know what to build in minecraft...), we all have opinions, but I swear to god the RPG hater bunch has the most rancid opinions I have ever heard: "RPGs were born because of technical limitations" so did ROGUE and now people enjoy Roguelikes, no one thinks that randomly generated maps or rooms in The Binding of Isaac or Enter the Gungeon is an old fashioned mechanic, "They are boring as hell" I can't argue with that but I'm sorry you can't see the fun in exploiting the weakness of a big boss or the joy of finally getting a build done for a certain character, it can be as fun as changing your class in a hero shooter to make up for some team balance issues. "The gameplay is just Pressing A", Mario is all about pressing A and B, and it is massively fun, it might not hit that dopamine rush in the same way but it is like getting a chess play to work.
And like I said everyone has opinions and all of them are equally valid, everyone can enjoy these games and live their own lives but the problem was that this sentiment was shaking the industry, companies dropped Turn based RPGs in order to favor more action packed experiences, that's why you got your FFVII Crisis Core, why you got your Super Paper Mario and then future entries trying to make Turn Based battles almost optional, your Nier, Your Fallout feeling like a Shooter more than turn based, your Kingdom Hearts, your Mass Effects and could see games like Final Fantasy XII and XIII having an identity crisis, trying to make Turn based action packed again just like when Square made the ATB system, shit even Lufia jumped the Shark and made an Action RPG, and during these days you had to go for more niche stuff like Disgaea or Shin Megami Tensei which it was a miracle some of them had translations. To be fair it was all shooters, people just wanted to shooters and people still do, shooters still play the exact same but no one says it is outdated as long as they hit that dopamine quota.
It wasn't until Persona 5 released in 2016 and it resonated with a bunch of Redditors and video game journalists after almost 8 years without a new mainline Persona game that Turn based was brought back to the table, for real this time, and I kinda hated the vibe and popularity it all had back then, how it was regarded as the best RPG ever the one that revolutionized Turn based battles and just the overall way it was EVERYWHERE, dude. I used to follow a lot of NSFW artists on tumblr and there wasn't a single day I didn't see an Ann Takemi lewd piece of art, I felt nothing but a void everytime I saw nsfw content of Persona 5 characters.
But now after all these years, I see how this was a necessary evil... As this made it clear that people were okay with grand stories with Turn based gameplay, thanks to this and other cool stuff like Dragon Quest XI a year later that we started having a good time with those despised turn based tussles again, and now cue to present day, we live in a world that saw the opposite of what was happening, a series such as Yakuza, an action beat em up game transformed into an RPG and is selling more than ever, we got the little edgy and heartless brother of Persona 5, Shin Megami Tensei V along with the return of Shin Megami Tensei 3 and a new kid in the Atlus block, Metaphor Re:Fantazio, literally the 2023 Game of the Year winner was Baldur's Gate 3, a sequel to one of the most beloved D&D based franchises ever and just a few days ago Clair Obscur Expedition 33 released making it people's favorite game even when we got the Elder Scroll's oblivion remastered shadow dropped (Wished it was Morrowind, tho).
It is now that I realize how this wound for RPGs is slowly healing and it sadly started in the most obnoxious way with the most obnoxious fandom. But yeah, this is just my opinion in the end, things might not happened this way but at least it was how I lived those times online and how a lot of people in my day to day life felt about this genre I care a lot about.
If you read all this, thank you.
