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[Neonivek]

From memory, Advance Wars, Valkyria Chronicles 2. Like I know they're not pure jRPGs, but they're the ones where it really bothered me the most

Ok I am going to eliminate Valkyria Chronicles 2 because I never played it... While the first game did indeed have a budding romance in the midst of war it never took first place in front of a conflict. Their romance grew FROM the trust and understanding required to pull off these missions and the game never let the dour mood sink the character interactions, but it did have a sobering set up once in a while and never forgot its setting. Yet the game was always trying to put on a happy face while in the background a desperate and losing battle was taking place. It is why as the game goes on the mood dips lower and lower... What were once "YEAH! We did it!" victories became battles that clearly weren't won without a price.

Advance Wars, however, you are right... But they did it intentionally. The big joke of the game is that no one takes war seriously, it is a game to them... even though they are essentially killing tons of people. So the death of millions is back seat.

[Virtz]

Ok I am going to eliminate Valkyria Chronicles 2 because I never played it...

Think Hogwarts for future war criminals.

As for VC1... yeah, I'm really invested in this character who smiles after shooting a person dead. What a hero.

Advance Wars, however, you are right... But they did it intentionally. The big joke of the game is that no one takes war seriously, it is a game to them... even though they are essentially killing tons of people. So the death of millions is back seat.

Any source on it being intentional? Cause I don't buy it. Somehow I doubt they actually stopped and thought about it.

[Parsely]

There are a lot of sweeping generalities being thrown out there..

As for VC1... yeah, I'm really invested in this character who smiles after shooting a person dead. What a hero.

Any source on it being intentional? Cause I don't buy it. Somehow I doubt they actually stopped and thought about it.

It's never clear if enemy soldiers are dead or wounded when their HP hits zero. It's explicit that YOUR soldiers are never dead when their HP hits zero regardless of how it happens, only if an enemy reaches their downed body and performs a coup de grace are they permadead.

Give me a break, it's patently obvious that Advance Wars doesn't take itself seriously. No one is ever explicitly killed, the violence is only implied since footsoldiers who are defeated simply retreat and the unit loses strength and eventually poofs, they don't fall to the ground and leave corpses; there are no casualty reports, no mention of medics or field hospitals. The leaders of the armies of entire countries are literally children. Only the spinoff Days of Ruin plays it straight since it's a post-apoc story. One of the secondary plot points is a disease that kills people and causes flowers to sprout from their skin. There's nothing like that in the main series.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Not to mention the cartoony art style that blatantly screams, 'We're not taking this seriously and neither should you'. That's not to say that you couldn't have a serious wargame with cartoony graphics, but it'd be extremely hard. If a game doesn't look very serious, chances are that it's not very serious.

[UXLZ]

So you're looking for a compelling story about the horrors of war from a fairly small cheerful Game Boy Advance game where the people whom you actually see aren't the soldiers themselves (they're the commanders.)

Advance Wars isn't even an RPG... It's a tactics game.

[TBeholder]

Because gamers had it too good for so long as videogames went from being a mostly cultish activity and thus games had to appeal to gamers who were mostly looking for depth and challenge... to being for a general audience that mostly includes people who don't play videogames and thus they are looking for brainless easy games.

There's nothing wrong with brainless easy games. Like tetris with low skill setting, or whack-a-mole, or KiSS.
There's a problem with stuff that would be decent, but was retarded by developers who think everyone else is terminally stupid (typical for MuckBug crowd) while they are one and half notch above that themselves - and worse (and more often), under "managers" who are zero notches above that themselves (as in, Hollywood level). Hence, most stuff that isn't small indie project ends up retarded - and most small indie projects end up half-done.

[nenjin]

I wouldn't care about the hardcore/casual distinction if there wasn't so much bleeding across genres I like. It's fine if people categorize their games one way or another. But it's when my enjoyable hardcore strategy game decides it needs a hefty casual element (while still calling itself hardcore) that I can't stand these days. Stick to your guns, make the game you want to make, quit trying to please several masters in the marketplace and producing a bastardized game neither side truly likes.

[TBeholder]

But it's when my enjoyable hardcore strategy game decides it needs a hefty casual element (while still calling itself hardcore) that I can't stand these days. Stick to your guns, make the game you want to make, quit trying to please several masters in the marketplace and producing a bastardized game neither side truly likes.

"a bastardized game neither side truly likes" is the result, yes. But it's not always and not as much "needs a hefty casual element" as just trying to palm off some crap quickly. Managers and devs who have no concept to begin with - they fall back to monkey level, bring and randomly drop in junk from everywhere.
Everything contaminated by the blurred diseased slime from SPIKY, scaly, purple-green tail of WoW, too.
Or lose their own devs who had a clue and then start imitating them (Star Control 3)...
And also applies even to dragging in stuff that did or would work quite well elsewhere (Master of Orion 3)...
And this isn't limited to computer games, either (D&D4).

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

...a hefty casual element...

What are 'casual elements'?  Only one I can think of is microtransactions.

[EnigmaticHat]

...a hefty casual element...

What are 'casual elements'?  Only one I can think of is microtransactions.

That's not a "casual element", that's a "thing you don't like".

[notquitethere]

I'm not sure 'hardcore' is a useful distinction. I think we can all agree that games serve different purposes and provide different kinds of challenges. Lots of games might be considered non-casual but for very different reasons:

High degree of physical prowess/muscle memory - twitch shooters, action platformers, beat-em-ups

Immense amount of patience necessary - punishing games like the original Devil May Cry or Dark Souls

Deep strategic thinking required - strategy/tactics games, roguelikes

Old-style graphics or interface - roguelikes, text adventures, rpgs etc pre-2000s

Those first two 'hardcore' elements hold very little interest for me. I don't like things being difficult just for the sake of being difficult: a game should be interesting and its challenge and mechanics should be appropriate to its story and themes. I particularly enjoy games which allow a great deal of player agency (Dwarf Fortress, Deus Ex, Dungeon Keeper, text adventures, the classic RPGS we were discussing), and the ideas of agency, pacing and engagement are more useful for understanding why I like games than the divisive and over-reaching terms 'hardcore' and 'casual'.

[Niveras]

...a hefty casual element...

What are 'casual elements'?  Only one I can think of is microtransactions.

Casual elements are, in theory, anything that devs make easier when you personally had no trouble with the current content. If you did BWL and AQ40 in vanilla, BC raids were casual. If you did Black Temple and Sunwell in BC, WotLK raids were casual, etc. Also how they got around to making most of the specs viable BC and especially WoTLK (more or less; at least a hell of a lot moreso than they were in vanilla): if you were a druid anything-else in BC, the druids who could raid only as resto in vanilla (and even resto sucked to play then) would call you casual.

Also things like capping income (valour/points etc) daily or weekly. I'm not sure if this is actually ironic or not because they'd be an absurd grind otherwise and only cause people to burn out quicker (and stress the people who can't keep up by running heroics 5 times a day every day). But I suppose the hardcore players would all have raid gear anyway so they wouldn't necessarily rely on the point/badge items. Of course, if raids themselves didn't have lockouts to begin with, then 'hardcore' players would complain that they could only run them once a week once Blizzard decided it's better gameplay wise to limit how often they can be cleared.

[alexandertnt]

Today, some people were murdered and their families are mourning. Are you shedding a tear? No?

The reason we don't care about the hundreds of people is they are faceless and we know nothing about them, just like those very real people who died today. But, we do know quite a lot about Satsuke (I assume you just made the character up), and as such we actually care about that character and their feelings.

I didn't murder those people, tho. It doesn't reflect on me, cause I had nothing to do with it, nor was it on me to prevent it. I'd expect it to reflect on whomever it affected.

You missed my point. I am more concerned about the latter (feelings, emotions etc etc) because I am emotionally invested in the character. I am not emotionally invested in the faceless "Hundreds of people" mentioned earlier, and as such am pretty happy to mostly ignore that, because its not interesting to me.

I want relatable, not realistic.

And regardless, most JRPG's I can think of have you murdering generic monsters most (sometimes all) of the time, or the "soldiers" were the aggressors. To take an extreme example, how many soldiers did you kill in To The Moon?

In jRPGs you often kill soldiers. Basically people doing their job as ordered by their country, often under threat of execution or other punishment. People who aren't necessarily doing it out of malice, greed or similar, just out of fear or obligation.

Don't be so judgemental, those bandits could be bandits because they are desperate and need to provide for their family. It further demonstrates that games (not just RPG's) are just using "bandits" and inhuman cannon fodder and building unrealistic characters out of them. Your still a horrible person for killing them.

That soldier could be very much down with the kings plan to destroy the world, or just going along for the pillaging. Why is killing soldiers worse when the only difference between a "soldier" and a "bandit" is the label the game gives them, when the soldier can be worse than the bandit?

It's actually the opposite, I believe. If you focus on the characters, then they'd better be redeemable and act like people.

JRPG characters are less defined by their actions than western RPG characters. So the fact that you "killed 100 soldiers" (an action) is more significant to a character in a western RPG, as they don't have much else to define their character. JRPG characters are defined primarily by other aspects, and these actions are generally less important.

The combat heavy gameplay leading to mass murder tends to break tone with anything other than total grimdark or absurdity.

Please, no more grimdark! It basically implies an absence of colours and characters with the emotion of a cardboard box. Absurdity is sometimes fun, but not always.

I am more than happy to overlook any minor "realism" issues to avoid having to stomach another "grimdark" game.

[NobodyPro]

I don't like things being difficult just for the sake of being difficult: a game should be interesting and its challenge and mechanics should be appropriate to its story and themes.

You say that, but Dark Souls achieves both those things.

[notquitethere]

I think it's a fine game but not one I'm interested in completing. Split-second timing and learn-by-dying mechanics were certainly thematic but in a game with loading screens it didn't feel like a very enriching way of spending my time. It's excellent at what it sets out to do and I'm glad it exists, but I prefer more cerebral games.