Japanese CRPGS are like Choose Your Own Adventure books, only with one choice all the time. Far too much handholding, clue giving and sheer lack of openness.

I remember playing Sorcerian from Sierra and thinking why couldn't the design team decide if it was an action game or an rpg? (given, sorcerian is pretty different from most vrpgs).

Recently Ive been trying to play Phantasy Star II/III/IV on the psp with the sega classic pack. I feel like, as a player, I don't do squat, your basically told where to go and what to do all the time. The hand holding is tedious, the dialogue is boring and insipid. The combat system is awefull (that seems pretty standard, its either final fantasy like or its dragon warrior like). I quickly lost interest after talking to A, being told to go to B, talk to C, go to D, talk to E, i felt like there was no progress but going round in circles. As soon as you realise that from talking to C and going to D, your just going to have to rinse and repeat forevery, its like, why bother...

plus, blue slimes are unappealing monsters. VRPGS had some crazy ass names that didnt make much sense.

-- Stu --