There is no need for speeches, Captain Klinger. I will follow you anywhere.

Take any Tim Rogers clip, and they'll be at least one quote there that has helped me understand games in new and exciting ways, but one I think about often is from his Final Fantasy 7 Remake review that goes something along the lines of “we weren’t JRPG fans - we were fans of games with more". For console players in the 90’s, JRPGs were where the big stories and big places lived. If you wanted to explore worlds that felt like worlds and meet huge casts of excellent weirdos, you were almost a JRPG fan by accident.

Many of what I’d nostalgically describe as my favourite games are JRPGs, but with the exception of Valkyria Chronicles and Ichiban’s Like A Dragon games, none of them are newer than 25 years old. This suggests to me that at least one of things I want from a game is an experience that I could once only get from JRPGs, but is now more democratised, either through design nous or technology or just more writers that feel able to tell more ambitious stories to audiences they’re confident will be receptive.