>>1921962 Might not be the reason as to why they do it, but I sometimes I like multiple paths and choices in barely replayable videogames because that means that my playthrough will be intrinsically different from another player's, and that's kind of neat

>>1922009 I still it's better for those mechanics to not be in that genre. Imagine if games like kirby or dmc had different endings.

>>1921962 JRPG We forgetting bioware or something?

>>1922229 Cinematic Action RPG with no grind and skippable dialog.

>>1922235 You can skip cutscenes too, I'm playing metaphor and SMT V right now. I can skip if I want to. Can't do anything about the grind but it if it bothers you, just cheat.

>>1921962 I replay JRPGs that I like, but only after a few years have gone by since my last play through. In most games the only real difference is which waifu you end up with. But that alone justifies having multiple endings in my opinion. That way, even if you only play through the game once, you're not forced to go with whichever girl the developers liked the most.

>>1921962 People who like the game?

>>1921962 >Why the fuck do jrpg dev put multiple endings and dialogue choices in a 40 hour long jrpg? So that the community can discuss the different endings they all earned. You do have friends, don't you?

Clearly every franchise should be like Deus Ex where you decide the ending 15 seconds from the finale.

>>1922352 That's kinda the paired endings from Fire Emblem Three Houses. You (as Byleth) get to pick who Byleth marries after the credits roll, but you pick that before the final battle. As a result, if you wanted to see all of them you gotta play the final map of whichever route you are on many times.

>>1922345 NTA but I've got friends, they're just all retarded. I've never come across another person in real life who liked complex or long games, only people who play the newest AAA garbage and flavor of the month trash. You guys are the only people I can actually talk to about videogames, in depth.

What is the point of a RPG without multiple endings? Like you go through and make all those choices and then get the same ending anyway.

>>1922238 If you're talking about modern JRPGs then yeah, older JRPG games, the PS1 era ones especially, have so much text and cutscenes, plus grind and railroading, most of which you can't skip, that I get burned out on a single playtrough and rarely replay them. The only exception so far has been Chrono Cross

>>1921962 Mainly because of how closely intertwined the JRPG genre is with the visual novel genre nowadays. Visual novels have always had multiple endings because making choices between paths is the closest the player will get to gameplay (besides maybe a minigame or two). They are usually on the shorter side to make up for this, and are very easy to fast-forward through because it is all just text boxes. In the past 20 years, JRPGs have started including visual novel elements (multiple endings and dialogue choices) to try and artificially inflate play time, to try and make the player feel more connected to the characters, and give the writers a chance to expand on individual character lore. So now you're stuck with a 40 or 50+ hour game because of all the dungeon grinding and cutscene A-button pressing that you cant just fast forward through because JRPGs actually require you to play the game actively. And it ends up being unsatisfying because creating multiple branching paths for games with dungeons, 3D environments, battles, etc. takes a lot more work than just making another key art for a visual novel. So players are given meaningless choices in dialogue that don't actually result in any major changes, or multiple endings that don't really mean anything either. >>1922505 Kek, just saw that art the other day.

>>1923311 >kek

>>1921962 >Who the fuck is going to replay that entire game all over again? Because seeing the different possibilities is not the point. Nipponeese game design disciplines use branches for one of two reasons; playthrough customization and true endings. The playthrough customization is not built for replays because you are supposed to choose your favorite options the first time through and they are your favorite options so why would you go back for the things you are going to enjoy less. (also picking a heroine other than your waifu the second time is NTR so that's a no go) True Ending based branches can be subdivided into games that funnel you to the true/best ending and ones that hide it. The ones that funnel you will often have something for ng+ but still aren't designed to have you go through everything because the true ending is there and you need to go for it right now. The ones that hide it are hiding it so there is no reason for them to design around multiple replays and even if they do so they would keep it hidden anyways so they can't do anything that'd give it away.

Because they can. Game development is rarely a carefully thought out project with plans being followed through beginning to end with the player in mind. Bar rare exceptions most development teams don't overthink design decisions, extra endings exist because the people making them thought they were cool and usually save systems are lenient enough to accommodate backtracking. >>1923352 This reminds me: FE3H is a modern example because it's route structure disincentivizes playing through different routes as they do not interface with the NG+ as well and most maps are repeated between routes, which is a death knell for a game as bloated as FE3H. If multiple routes were not integrated properly and are a poor fit for the game itself why did they make them in the first place? Because a dev that liked Edelgard snuck in Crimson Flower in Silver Snow. To differentiate the game from Fates the devs started inserting other routes with no regard for the routes before them and that made it the game fags debate over to this day.

These systems have always made me make multiple save slots for big decisions while looking at guides to see if it is a condition for getting certain endings. Its how I managed to see all the endings in Hyperdimension Neptunia Mk2 including its infamous "conquest" ending Which I loved, but I presume people don't want violence in their panty raider jrpgs anymore. While I know these aren't the ways devs intend to have people enjoy their games, its a similar issue with people hoarding items, a general anxiety of experience, either being unprepared or missing what tehy would think is the best part of the game. I don't have time to go ending hunting much anymore (unless its a game that I really really enjoy), so I just use guides to get to the best/True ending and look up the others online.

>>1923352 https://youtu.be/7_mmhxHzSBw?si=bckUf5Ydiuik74m5

>>1925359 I have trouble hearing the original version of that song without double-taking because my mind tries to auto-correct to ravioli. Anyways, yeah if you view the different routes as timelooping Byleth is basically in hell because there is no way to save everyone from the game's starting point and looking for one means having to kill them all again and again. Crimson Flower gets kinda close if you play it right but there are still a handful of necessary deaths in there. >>1924943 >Because a dev that liked Edelgard snuck in Crimson Flower in Silver Snow. To be fair if the game was just Silver Snow it would have almost been as shitty a story as Fates, it's literally the weakest route in the game. Also Edelgard is the correct choice anyways

>>1924943 >most maps are repeated between routes Most maps are reused multiple times in a single route. Sometimes the only difference is the enemies are stronger or have different equipment.

>>1925377 That's easy to believe that because effort that would've gone to polishing and making Silver Snow more worthwhile was instead spent on making other routes. SS feels more barebones than the rest of the routes because it's the baseline that all other routes branch off from. Though honestly I blame people's view on SS being as a result of VW just being it's campaign with more stuff both for itself and from AM while giving you the infinitely more charismatic Claude to lead the narrative instead of the player-insert. >>1925395 The repetition gets exaggerated when it's repetition on top of repetition. Each campaign can get up to 80-60 hours even repeating that once can be a tall ask for many players.

>>1922995 Fair enough.But I can't remember any western rpgs that did things different when I compare it to baldurs gate and kotor.

>>1921962 >Why the fuck do jrpg dev put multiple endings and dialogue choices in a 40 hour long jrpg? >Who the fuck is going to replay that entire game all over again? Git gud.

>>1921962 I often replay 40 hour long jrpgs. Branching paths and multiple endings are a nice bonus but even without those I might do another playthrough to improve my mastery of the game mechanics, try new strategies, challenge myself with extra handicaps, etc >Why can't they put it in something repayable like a 2d action platformer Do games like contra hard corps not count? >Who the fuck is going to replay that entire game all over again? People who enjoy playing games, rather than treating them as chores that you want to get over with as soon as possible.

>>1927764 I enjoy playing games,I don't enjoy replaying a game with a million hours.

>>1927764 >JRPG >mechanics Mashing through hours of dialogue boxes, then grinding a zillion random encounters, aren't exactly mechanics most people would want to master.

>>1928138 Because they can't.

>>1921962 Because games were made for kids who had no responsibilities and all the free time in the world. And neets.

People play jRPGs mostly for the story and art, which makes me wonder why the devs didnt just draw a manga instead. But knowing the japanese, i think they would do it like: >If anon-kun choses the loli, buy chapter 45 to continue the story. >If anon-kun choses the werewolf woman, buy chapter 46 to continue the story.

As someone who doesn't tend to 100% games, I don't see a problem with just playing through an rpg once and accepting I won't see everything. Not a big deal to miss some bosses/dungeons from another route if the game even has that many differences, and if I really want to see some other outcomes, I'll just watch a video on it. Hell, in smt games I've gotten to where, even on a second playthrough I'll just pick the same route again cause it's what I like. As much as I wish those games had more satisfyingly different routes, I suppose a silver lining is that you don't usually miss much by just picking what you want.

>>1928602 >I'll just watch a video on it. Thanks for admitting that these things shouldn't even pretend to be video games. They're just Choose Your Own Adventure novels with poor excuses for gameplay only getting in the way of why their own fans actually play them.

>>1921962 I see you're the faggot who bitches that RPGs need to be more linear. Fuck you. RPGs are at their best when you can actually make decisions that matter, and not just "how do I want to kill the exact same group of mooks" type decisions.

>>1928895 I play them for the whole experience. JRPGs that make you sit through hours of story before you can even explore the first town are the worst ones.

>>1928602 Man why didnt anyone tell SMT V is so meh Fucks sake this is such a downgrade from IV and IV Apocalypse This is just dungeon crawling the game, no rest spots, no lore building. I don't wanna say I and II are better even after 25+ years but holy shit at least they had atmosphere. There's nothing in V but fight fight fight. I can't think of a single enjoyable scene i've had so far. >>1928964 YES you get it. SMT V feels so damn linear. if I didn't give a shit about about 100% for the compednium I would speed through this crap so fast. >>1929068 To each their own but I gotta disagree, SMT IV started slow but you built camaraderie with your companions and had a understanding of the lore. Here you're dropped right in, and its fucking boring as shit. Literal Deus ex machina no buildup just crawling and fighting and jumping.

>>1928138 not all JRPGs are Nippon Ichi's stuff, Anon.

>>1925680 Western RPGs usually have more freedom in terms of progression. I think a big issue of older RPGs is also convoluted plots, most of which are badly translated which adds to the confusion.

>>1934366 but ALL JRPGs are Excel spreadsheets

>>1934606 You know, I've never understood this simile. then again, I don't work with spreadsheets often so eh

>>1921962 >Who the fuck is going to replay that entire game all over again? People who like 40 hour long jrpgs >Why can't they put it in something repayable like a 2d action platformer or a bullet hell? Because those genres aren't usually story-focused.

>>1921962 Because it's fun 🙂

>>1936882 I miss old marketing.

>>1937117 You have no idea how much I miss it