To go further, I'd say that text placement within the text box is also important. Like, the aim should be to keep a complete sentence in a single box rather than splitting it across multiple, or at least break up the sentence where it most makes sense, such as at commas. Easier said than done when translating from Japanese which can say more with less space, but content written originally in English should have no problem with this. 😉
Bro this! Another thing that I miss specifically from FF games is the menu sfx every time you scroll through and select an option. It’s those little things that I miss from the old days.
These are my favourite type of videos you make. I understand you probably get more views from FF/SMT/Square videos but these type of videos are where you stand out from other content creators. Please keep it up!! :)
Thank you for saying that, really glad to hear others resonate so much with these types of videos as they’re some of my favorite to make as well. Maybe one day the algorithm will appreciate them in the same way but in the meantime we’ll keep ‘em coming!
You literally made a video on one of my favorite game subjects. I could watch hours of content talking about menus, typography and fonts, dialogue boxes, maps, etc.
Chrono Cross is one of my fav dialog boxes as well. Good UI really helps make a good game great. Can't wait for Musashi, such a gem and would LOVE a remake.
Yep UI in general is extremely important. I’m looking forward to sharing my full thoughts on the game soon but yeah it’s definitely one that would be super fitting for a remake/remaster with some modern QoL changes!
A couple of years ago it was announced that Sakurai's wife would be completely remaking the GUI for Smash Bros Melee, and at the time I didn't even know that Sakurai worked with his wife, let alone that she's responsible for all the UI in his games. IMO interface, be it menus or dialog boxes, are sorta like CGI where you don't really notice mid and good Interfaces, only the bad or amazing examples. Great vid. I didn't have a Sega when I was a kid, but I remember hanging out with one friend a LOT back in 97 or so simply because I was fascinated by everything in Shining Force II. The dialog boxes and sounds were a big draw for me as a kid.
This is exactly the kind of stuff I love getting super deep in the weeds about. It's such an important, underrated aspect. Heck, when the Mario RPG remake was announced, the one complaint was that the few dialogue and UI boxes onscreen didn't match with the game, and of course the whole debacle about the Pixel Remasters and their fonts
My favourite text boxes in JRPGs has to be the ones from final fantasy VII and IX they look so refreshing to see. And even you can customise FFVII text box to have different colours. I have a habit of doing them right near the end of the game.
OH AH! A Brave Fencer Musashi retrospective?! Subbed! I had that game when 8 years old and it unlocked something in me. I always feel it gets extremely overlooked... truth be told I haven't played it since I was 10 but I remember it very fondly... (except for when I was 8 and I accidentally created my first unbeatable save ever. The part of the game where you have a time limit to stop the tree from exploding)
Greetings from Brazil, I wanted to thank you all; your videos are really great, and one can feel how much you love the genre. I've created a channel here in Brazil to talk about J-Rpgs, and I hope to one day produce content of such high quality as yours, keep the good work!
I love me a good portrait in the dialogue box if the camera is zoomed out or the sprites are small. Like Shining Force or Langrisser. But there are cases where I truly think it would add nothing too. Chrono Trigger is a case where the sprites are so charmfully animated during cutscenes that I never once wished there were any dialogue portraits to go along with it. How every character feels is portreyed perfectly as it is to the player.
I’d say one of my favorite (maybe my favorite?) dialogue box ideas is from Blue Dragon. While the box itself is fairly standard, the real time, animated portrait of the character your talking to on the screen really feel like a step up in the style of using a portrait for dialogue.
One thing I thought was clever in FF6's dialogue boxes was how text would appear letter by letter instead of all at once. This seems ordinary until you also notice that the designers could modify the rate at which text rendered, which offered a subtle but tangible idea of how quickly a character was speaking in those days before voice acting. You had the occasional dramatic pause mid-line. You had Kefka's "I hate hate hate hate" rant probably show up faster than any other text in the game. It's a detail I greatly missed while playing the Pixel Remaster. I'd also be remiss to avoid mentioning that one of the alternate backgrounds buried in the customization options can be combined with tweaking the color palette in that same menu to unleash Demon Chocobo (and make the menus nearly unreadable). FF7 allowed for multiple dialogue boxes to appear on screen at once, and therefore allowed for simultaneous line delivery. A place where this really hit was during That Spoiler scene where Sephiroth starts monologuing, and a box where Cloud yells "Shut up!" not only appears mid-monologue, but does so partially covering up Sephiroth's text.
I love that y'all cover so much more about the minutia of JRPGs. If I am indeed 1 of 17, we're a cool ass club of seventeen haha. Dialogue boxes really are something that matters. Kingdom Hearts reminded me of how important they are!
Turns out CC's default, Arnian Wood, frame just so happened to be my favourite lol, only Thee For Three saw some use, at least it was fun collecting all those frames.
As someone that has designed a handful of UI elements for fan projects, I love focusing on the small details like stuff like dialogue boxes. Chrono Cross's variety of entirely different frames is rather nice, though the fact that you have to *find* them is a little annoying. Stylistically, I like things with lots of filigree - Dragon Force, the dialogue and status HUDs in Langrisser 2 (Genesis), Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn's menus as a whole... But, one of the crown jewels of UI customization in my opinion is that of Fire Emblem: Thracia 776's customization. It skins to the major menus and unit stat screens, but there are different patterns to pick from AND you get to alter the direct R, G, and B values of different shades, producing some very wide-scope UI designs!
I dont think this is scraping the bottom of the barrel at all. Ive thought about dialogue boxes quite a bit. So its awesome to get more perspective on the topic, as its improbable that I've thought of EVERYTHING about them. Its a HUGE part of JRPGs, as most are pretty dialogue heavy. And there are some really really cool designs out there. Ive got some pretty good ideas as well! :D
I've always had a weird 'passion' for dialogue boxes. It can really help make or break a game for me. While I love games like Suikoden and Grandia, and am glad portraits are included, they can be a SLOG to go through. By that, I mean the dialogue presents itself way too slow. And oftentimes, pressing X takes 2+ clicks to speed things up and boxes transition slowly. When a game scrolls quickly and responds to input immediately it really helps the flow. While FF never had portraits, the design was always clean and moved briskly, making for improved pacing.
It's technically part of the same category but to me a good dialogue box is similar to good GUI in general: it either doesn't stand out to you or it feels like it's part of the game world.
Have you thought of talking about user interfaces? And how they evolved from their janky origins on 8-16 bit to the optimized design of later games. It could be subdivided like this: plain gameplay interfaces (like main menus, status menus); battle interfaces; and "others" (like mini game interface, shopping interface, etc). The suggestion is motivated because i'm currently playing rpgs of varied periods like Final Fantasy 6, Front Mission 1 (snes), Tactics Ogre (snes), Shining Force 2, FFT, Tales of Phantasia (ps1), FFT Advance, etc... all at the same time in rotation... and the experience of contrast between well thought and optimal interfaces and clunky obsolete interfaces made a strong impression on me. It's a field that's gone through a solid (and accelerated) progress since the early 90s.
For some reason I feel like portraits in dialogue boxes would clash with the style in FF games. (Tactics being an exception because it had a different art style)
I miss character portraits, like, 3d models are cool but nothing can beat 2d art with the characters talking, specially if they have a pitch for talking like Ace Attorney. Honestly Fire Emblem Engage broke my heart dropping the 2d portraits, specially as they finally fixted the font problem from 3Houses, gods, a bad typography can ruin a game, like, I want to be able to read the story. I do miss old FE portraits that moved their mouth when talking, I enjoy it so much, it looks so neat. I love old games allowing to change the color scheme, allows not only personalization but also make the game more comfortable and suited for the player which is huge. And yes, Tales of is so iconic for the skits, the best invention in any RPG ever.
@@GamingBroductions thank you! Yeah, I remember now. I loved it with undub, completed about two years ago. Imageepoch had something special about their games.
This is not a "boring" topic. Just pretty detailed. Truth be told, I've been analyzing a lot about what I like about rpgs. And I've noticed that how text is presented can make a games dialogue go to either being snappy and easy to get through, or a slog that puts you do sleep. How text is presented is extremely important.
Also, about font in textboxes, one issue people may have with font is dyslexia. People with dyslexia can really struggle to read certain fonts, especially if its on certain backgrounds or has poor text spacing. If a game wants to use certain fonts for stylistic choice or to show different characters, they need to have accessibility options for more readable fonts. Comic sans is a font that was made specifically to be readable for people with dyslexia so I feel like most games should honestly have an option for this. Also, coloured paper is another way that can help some people with dyslexia, so being able to change text box colour should also be a necessity, especilly if the default is white. I feel like dyslexia is an accessibility thing that often gets dismissed, but it is one reason why my girlfriend can't enjoy JRPGs as much as she could because of all the reading you need to do.
I always enjoyed the way Quintet did their text in their SNES RPGs like Illusion of Gaia, where they had different colors for each character, and the text even had a gradient effect.
Ah yeah those would have been great to bring up. I honestly forgot how good those looked as it’s been forever since I’ve played those games but after looking up some screenshots I remember how good they are now, very clean looking and the different colors for different characters is an excellent touch
You've got to do a video on save points. From saving on the over world map, to random glowing areas, writing in books, etc. Save points would be a good one.
What's there to say about save points though? Some games have a lot, some games have too few. Some let you save anywhere. Okay now what? Show pictures of what they look like?
@@flameshana9 I find myself lacking in creativity and imagination, but for that reply it seems you are worse than me. But it doesnt matter, these content creators can make things work. And this video is precisely a good example of that.
Even though I played Eternia before I played Symphonia, Symphonia is really where I fell in love with the series and a significant factor of that was how great the skits were in fleshing out the characters and giving the game personality
I enjoy these videos on topics about JRPGs that not many people pay attention to. I’m happy to see that something many would consider small is getting much deserved attention. They are truly immersive! Persona 5 and FFT are my top!
Not a JRPG, but Pentiment does different fonts for characters which tells you about their personality, education/background and more. Excellent game with fantastic dialogue boxes and worth checking out
I haven't played Pentiment yet, but I saw a review and their handling of fonts seems outstanding. That's actually a main reason I want to play it, the idea of something as simple as text being used so artfully is really cool.
Pentiment is an rpg that lacks combat. it's one of the most unique and enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had. I'm glad they ported it to other systems so more people could experience it. Josh Sawyer and the Obsidian team are just incredible.
I will say I think that, other than the DS SMT games I am glad SMT doesn't have portraits. I think that portraits in a game like Nocturne or SMT V would ruin the tone a bit. Cant imagine character portraits over some of the scenes in those games.
Man, the production quality for the Sega Camelot games still holds up so well. As much as I love the SNES library, the Genesis kind of spoiled me in terms of expectations for animations and character personalities.
For me the dialogue boxes need to be a little pixelated. I can't stand the smoothed out versions of the Final Fantasy remaster versions. It makes it look like a cheap mobile game. Its odd that such a thing can be a turn off but it makes me not want to play the game.
ahhh a nice new Gaming Broductions video for a nice relaxing Friday night. Thanks for always make awesome stuff bro, I always make sure to watch and like your videos. Hope all is well with you brotha.
Couldn't agree with you more - Octopath and Triangle Strategy suffer TREMENDOUSLY For lack of character portraits in dialogue boxes, whereas the Suikoden series was massively aided by them
Great video! Another topic I find interesting in the "Little Things Matter" category is how JRPGs handle their level up screens. Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete is my personal favorite on this topic because I just love the style of how they show each stat on the screen at the same time. I'll never forget the first time the "Number of Attacks" stat increased in that game. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is another that adds so much detail and fun to their level up process.
Honestly, minor as it is, I think it does contribute a pretty good amount to how aesthetically pleasing an RPG is and people really don't give them enough credit. Definitely with you on Chrono Cross' boxes too, when I found out you could find new frames and just change them whenever you wanted I was pretty shocked and excited since i'd never heard of an RPG doing something like that before and in '99 at that.
i like your videos, its just too bad you only post 1 video every 3 weeks. wish you'd post more. Most gaming content creators post multiple videos a week, so 1 a week doesnt seem like too much, maybe 1 every 10 days (3 a month)
Ya love to hear it. Shittt maybe one of these days when we get enough videos in a certain series we’ll combine them all together for a super long video
One thing that's in every dialogue boxes that's very hard to master is the perfect text speed. Fast enough that you're not compelled to just press the button again to show the whole text, slow enough so that you don't just end up skipping everything that isn't the text. Extra direction points for games that tries to sync the text speed to the character showing emotions, with pauses and varying speeds.
In Wild Arms 3, if you press the select button during a dialog the faded portraits will be shown in bold colors, and it also works in the status screen menus with the characters portraits.
Golden Sun was one of the first I noticed the text noises, and I loved how it really was like different voices. It even conveyed emotion with the tones which I thought was great because it could do different region languages, and not need to change.
If I remember correctly, a fun thing you could do in Wild Arms 3 is, if you press Select during a conversation, you could make the character image become prominent for a little bit.
@@GamingBroductions I actually really enjoyed the topic. Your channel has a vibe that I love so it doesnt really matter to me what you talk about. But you 2 were able to actually make an enjoyable video about text boxes
I love this video, it's easy to find retrospectives of popular JRPGs but the extensive knowledge you have on those games really makes a topic like this interesting an also unique on the platform!
Just found this channel. Great voice over and general production. Plus you really know you're stuff; it made me really nostalgic! Instant sub, now to check out your other content. Also, hearing my typing sounds as I write this has a nice little touch now as this is kinda of like my dialogue box ;)
Dude, I LOVE videos like this. Focusing on very specific details and topics like this lets you get more into detail about small, underrated but important elements like this. It's harder to appreciate these details when you have to cover a larger topic or whole game in one 15 minute video. One of my favorite tropes for dialogue boxes is when a character portrait will suddenly change pose for the rest of the game to show a huge character shift. Stuff like that is examples of using "limitations" like this to create a memorable experience. I'd love to see more videos like this covering these hyper specific elements. (Video on the tales skit system maybe?)
I think this was a great idea for a video and gave me something to think about for my own game designs. One disagreement I have though is that I don't think 3D games should use character portraits with their text but rather animate the faces of the 3D models instead. But for 2D games it can work well.
