I've been playing Rogue Galaxy for a little while, and it has finally dawned on me that I can't stand the JRPG archetypes anymore.  From the naive-yet-brave (but no less stupid) Jaster to the "I'm skinny and cute and I've been on this ship my whole life but I'm still retarded" Kisala(?), I want to punch them all in the face.  The big, strong, sexy, but stubborn and loudmouthed Lilika (who is, yes, incredibly dumb), the... you know what?  It doesn't even matter.  I hate them all with a passion.

The story elements are so damned similar to all of the other games I've played, I can't even figure out why I'm still playing.  (Well, I can, sort of: the collecting and item-building is really addicting).  But the characters, URRGH!, the characters!  How many times do they need to say someone's name and then trail off?  And how many times to I have to sit through the "They're going to carry out ritual execution, but it is not our place to judge, no, let us sit here and cry until the last second" storyline?  Played out and really, really dumb.

And then there's that annoying ballad roughly midway through the game that they play over a long cinematic -- sure, you can skip cutscenes after a few minutes, but then you miss some neat lines and important plot points that inevitably come back to haunt you.  Why, though?  Why sing that song just then, especially when it's so out of place?  This is just terrible direction on somebody's part.

But you know something?  It's not just Rogue Galaxy.  It's Tales of the Abyss.  It's Tales of Phantasia.  It's almost every JRPG I can think of that has come out in the last ten years, and even before that.

A lot of this can be chalked up to Japanese culture as a whole.  I used to be fascinated with it, but the more I learned, the less I liked.  And a lot of these elements are reflected in the SAME.  DAMN.  RECYCLED.  THEMES.  IN.  EVERY.  GAME.  THEY.  MAKE.

Even so, I hate to throw the proverbial baby out with its bathwater.  While the thematic elements need a serious overhaul, the actual gameplay has proven to be exciting and dynamic.  New games bring new ways of bolstering characters and viewing the gameworlds.  If only I didn't have to wade through a river of crap to get to it...