Topic: What's up with all the RPG hate?

This is something that I've been thinking about for a while, why do people hate RPGs so much? (especially anime styled ones.) Most of my favourite games are RPGs, and it's ok if you don't like them, but why are people so strong about their hate? Some examples:

I remember with recent Nintendo Directs people always make fun of how many RPGs there are, even though those games probably aren't taking up time of other games they do like.

There has been a lot of hate for Baldur's Gate 3 winning the Game of the Year award just because it is a turn based RPG.

I have noticed however there is quite a lot of love on this site for them, but I want a bit of perspective. I've seen it everywhere online. It's strange. Why do people refuse to give them a try?

@imadeanaccount
I think it's because of culture clash.
Some Western peoples still consider the Japanese stuffs are weird or too different for their taste so whenever they see JRPG games with very anime style character design, they might get repulsed as their culture are accepting something like Western superheroes style.

Also, some Western peoples don't like turn based style games where it doesn't have very fluid actions which Western peoples like to play games with constant actions and more violences.
Some peoples don't like with long conversations that looks like novel books. They want the actions, not the long texts for 10 minutes.

Again, it's depend of people's taste of something. Some peoples like very realistic anime style character design, some peoples like Dragon Ball style character design, some peoples like Chibi character style, some peoples like Doraemon character style.
Especially some of adult gamers have tendency to like realistic style characters, not the cartoonish style characters because they don't like the kiddie looking stuffs.
The other reasons why peoples don't like JRPG games because of the character design aspect.
If they don't like with the character design, doesn't matter how beautiful of the character design, they will not give a try because they just don't like it / the design is not appealing for some peoples.

From gameplay aspect, some peoples don't like very grindy process to level up one character and it will make them bored quickly. Because of this, some peoples gave up very early due to the repetitive and grindy process to make one character getting stronger. Not everyone like to play in hardcore mode.

I personally have some interest with certain JRPG games like FF X/X-2, FF VIII, FF IX, Fantasy Life, Earthlock, FF 3 NDS, Miitopia, etc as long still appropriate for kids / teenagers, not very anime style like fire emblem style, no fanservice looking female characters with big boobs like xenoblade style, no swearing and bloody stuffs, etc.
I prefer cute Chibi style like Fantasy Life / Miitopia with light storyline, quirky or fancy gameplay that make them stand out. Beside, I already my own JRPG style character heroes that I have designed very long time with planetary names (not Sailor Moon) and if this become official game, it will be Action RPG Kingdom Hearts style.

Maybe because they hate how RPG’s are know for having the player having to grind out levels in order to continue. And for turn based RPG’s they probably hate them because they view turn based combat and either unrealistic or being very annoying and they usually prefer more action based combat like the XC series or kingdom hearts. Also another reason why people hate more anime or chibi style games is because they hate anime style games because recently people are accusing people who like anime to be creeps and a article that won a award accused Japanese media for being something that I don’t think I can say on this site without getting in trouble. Oh right! As for people hating chibi style games is because they think that a game that has chibi’s looks like a “crappy mobile game”. Honestly though I really love RPG’s so the fact that people hate the genre is honestly upsetting but hey what can you do?

RPGs are not my favorite genre because of a few things. Many of them are incredibly long, I don't like the repetitive process of grinding, and some RPGs, like the Xenoblade series, can have some mechanics that are a bit too complex for me. I sometimes play RPGs, but I have to be selective with them because of their typically ultra-long running times. I've also been considering turning on some sort of easy mode anytime I play them. I've gotten upset a few times playing Xenoblade Chronicles 2 because of certain boss fights... I would keep losing to them over and over, not knowing exactly what needs to be equipped or whatever, so I'd need to ask for help. They really feel like roadblocks. There's one boss fight in XC2 that I'm currently stuck at (not saying what it is because of spoilers), and yeah... it's been kind of upsetting for me so I'm on hiatus from the game.

@imadeanaccount As for Baldur's Gate, I feel like any GotY winner is going to get some hate just because it wasn't the game other people wanted to win.

Honestly, not even really sure what you mean by hate... rpgs have been getting an insane amount of love in most of the circles and news items I have seen lately between Baldur obsession, hype for the next final fantasy game, love for some of indies like sea of stars. And not just places like this, but on Twitch, non-game-related discord servers, the mainstream news media, people at my work who never normally talk about games usually but talked about how they want to play Baldur's, etc.

Sure some people dislike rpgs but that's similar to how there is both a lot of love and a lot of hate towards e.g. FPS games or mobile games or sports games etc. A lot of big genres have that duality although not quite all... I feel like the platformer haters for example grumble but not as loudly... not sure why.

As for recent Nintendo directs, there has definitely been some jokes about just how many tactical rpgs and how many farming games there have been. That doesn't mean people hate them, they just want directs to either be more balanced or to focus more on their personal favorite genres. 😝

Personally, I often dislike incredibly long games which certainly intersects some types of rpgs. Also not a fan of tactical RPGs. But I quite like many shorter rpgs.

I do think many people think turn-based in particular is old-fashioned (e.g. snes games) and/or made for kids (Pokemon). Given the huge popularity of Baldur's gate, expect a ton of new turn-based games coming out soon which will inevitably annoy the haters. Final Fantasy of course recently left turn-based for action which has caused a lot of controversy.

Honestly, RPG is an insanely broad category so I think many people who say they dislike them may only dislike some categories. For example if you browse the Switch eShop RPG category the top of the list includes Zelda Tears of the Kingdom, Stardew Valley, Mario RPG, Hogwart's legacy, Dave the Diver, Pokemon Violet, Hades, Elder Scrolls Skyrim, Persona 5, Dark Souls, Dragon Ball Z, Fire Emblem Engage... those are some insanely different games which overlap RPG (at least by Nintendo's classification).

Fun fact: RPG is the top earning genre in mobile. I assume because of games like Genshin.

It's fun looking up definitions of RPG. 😝 Most of them are basically just "a game with a world and a story where you control a character as part of the story... typically with character growth involving numbers".

Maybe RPG haters just don't like numbers. Or games with actual plots. 😆 I agree probably not many people dislike RPGs, just certain sub-genres and I don't actually know if certain subgenres have more hate than others — seems like most people like some and not others dependent on the person.

@FishyS
Some of gamer who have interest with JRPG games also have interest in Math (counting the damage and complex calculation), especially Tactic style RPG.

On the internet people express their opinions in the most extreme terms possible. Many people don't like RPGs and surely many people hate them, but the volume of hate you see is because the culture of the internet amplifies it.

I've got actual spreadsheets to work out my Fire Emblem and Xenoblade builds. Both games are guilty as charged in that regard.

That said, they're the only Nintendo games I do that with. Their remaining RPGs tend more toward the lightweight side.

I think you meant to say farming games rather than RPGs.

@jump I mean like half of those farming games are also RPGs so...

Didn't we all grow a crop of spongy spuds in Xenoblade 3?

I'm probably repeating someone above, but I would think BG3 got some stick when it won game of the year due to it being a game that won Game of the Year.
Any other game would've got the same criticism it it won the award. If one's fave genre is RPG, then you would be more attuned to the criticism than if a game from another genre won.

Edit: And if there is an overabundance - or a perceived overabundance - of RPGs, then people will complain. All those Metroidvanias from a few years ago, then all the farming sims. Before that all the fighting games on the Neo Geo, etc etc

RPG stands for Role playing game so in each RPG that you play you have a role. I don’t know what there is to hate about this. Most RPGs are pretty cool mostly.

People hate RPGs? That's new to me.

Some folks feel turn-based combat is antiquated.

But I'd argue that's the defining characteristic of an rpg.

Final Fantasy XVI is not an rpg, that's an action game.

One might even call it... an action RPG!

I'm curious now about tags since they sort of imply sub-genres... the majority of games in the Switch eshop tagged RPG also have a second tag — action, simulation, shooter, platformer, etc.. and most of these are not turn-based but still have a real plot and some type of 'stats' or leveling up.

On the other hand, looking informally, it seems like most games labeled nothing but 'RPG' as well as a lot that only have strategy or adventure tacked on, are turn-based. There are some games which combine turn-based and action of course so they can be in either category.

As one counterexample, the Tales franchise has always been one of the biggest JRPG series but even in the 90s it had action combat rather than turn-based. Nintendo/Bandai itself labels those as just RPG rather than 'action RPG', maybe because the series is famous enough there shouldn't be confusion.

Wait they are hated? This is the first I’m hearing of this, I mean I know they aren’t everyone’s taste but hated? Why!?