The River Changed, So Did You
I paused the video mid-sentence. “Soulless mashup machine.” Oof. That hit sideways. Not because I think Derek meant harm — he was addressing a Reddit take comparing indie WRPGs to AI. But it still landed like a stray elbow, lumping real people’s work into a machine metaphor.
The irony? Everything is derivative. Dragon Quest grew out of Wizardry and Ultima. Chrono Trigger didn’t pop out of nowhere — it stood on the shoulders of what came before. Derivative doesn’t mean worthless. It means alive.
What Derek did nail, though, is the mirror. Games aren’t necessarily worse. Players change. The river moves, and so does the man. If you’re trying to step into JRPG waters expecting to be 15 again, you’ll drown in disappointment.
I admit it — I judge. Price tags, art direction, value for time. I’m part of the problem. But unlike the nostalgia-fetish crowd crying that nothing looks like 1995, I still leave the door cracked open. I still hope a game can surprise me, cut through my filters, and make me feel that spark again.
Games haven’t gotten worse. Some of us just stopped letting ourselves enjoy them.
/#gaming #jrpg #rpg #steam #nostalgia #bearblog #gremlinthoughts