In 2023, I tried to play about a dozen indie retro JRPGs. I’ve always loved the JRPG play cycle of slowly gaining strength and resources through turn-based battles and dungeon exploration, and I don’t necessarily find repetitive simplicity boring. Still, I bounced off almost all of the games I tried within the first hour.

In order to think through why I’ve had so much trouble getting into more contemporary retro JRPGs, I returned to Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, which was originally released for the Super Nintendo in 1992. Mystic Quest was intended to introduce American console gamers to the conventions of JRPGs, and its various ease-of-use features allow the player to complete the story in less than five hours. Despite its primitive graphics and gameplay, I had a good time with Mystic Quest, and I took away five lessons about why this simple-as-bricks game works for me while so many contemporary retro JRPGs don’t.

(1) If the game is more than an hour long, there needs to be actual gameplay.

I have a soft spot for indie retro RPGs in which the player does nothing but walk around and talk to people, but there’s a limit to how much of this I’m willing to engage with. Even in a story-focused game, there needs to be some sort of activity that isn’t reading text on a screen.

(2) The player needs to experience this gameplay within the first ten to fifteen minutes.

I think a major aspect of what people liked about old JRPGs is that the player could generally progress from the first town to the first dungeon right at the beginning of the game. Exposition and worldbuilding are important, but not as important as the game being fun to play. Even Final Fantasy VII, which has a famous opening cutscene, sees Cloud and Barret fighting enemies and navigating a dungeon within the first five minutes.

(3) Battles with minor enemies should be over quickly.

This is especially the case at the beginning of the game, when the player is still getting a feel for how everything works. If every random battle is two minutes long, these minutes add up. It doesn’t matter how clever the battle-specific character dialogue or flavor text is; it loses its charm when I see it repeated dozens of times across dozens of random battles.

(4) There should be a bell curve for complexity.

The opening of a game needs to demonstrate the game’s aesthetics and mechanics in a way that shows the player what the game is about. This doesn’t need to be dramatic or flashy or cinematic, and the point is definitely not to overwhelm the player with a giant town filled with NPCs or endless text reels of exposition. All of that should come later, when the player is already invested and eager for more. A game should start simple and gradually become more complex before opening up somewhere in the middle. By the end of the game, though, the complexity needs to decrease as the player becomes more focused on finishing the story. Structure is important.

(5) The player should be able to interact with the environment in region-specific ways.

This is the key ingredient that makes the Legend of Zelda games work so well, and even standard JRPGs like Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy VI incorporate elements of environmental exploration as well. If I’m in a forest, I want to be able to find an axe that I can use to chop down trees. If I’m navigating the sewer system under a castle, I want sluice gates that raise and lower the water level. If I’m in a seaside merchant town, I want there to be secret passages filled with treasure. Exploration is infinitely more enjoyable if the player has something to do.

Okay, one more:

(6) It’s fun to be able to jump.

I’m not going to elaborate on this, because it’s a self-evident truth: It’s fun to be able to jump. Also, if there are cute animals, the player should be able to pet them.