Hi! I’ve been working on a list of RPGs (mostly japanese or j-influenced somewhat) in which the cast is mostly adults. The list is hosted on backloggd.
Leaving it here both in case it may be useful to anyone, but also in case you spot any missing titles that you believe should be added :) cheers!
P.S: the only reason for not taking western RPGs into consideration is because… well, most of them already feature adult casts. Think series such as Divinity, Shadowrun, Baldur’s Gate, etc. However, those usually play dramatically different when compared to the JRPG-style turn-based combat.
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I like it. Almost all jrpgs and anime these days are targeted at children or adults who like anime for children. I miss when there was more content made to appeal to adults.
The funny thing is, I don’t think even this is a right way of looking at it. I think variety in the characters you view makes them more interesting; adult characters can definitely come across as heroic even to kids. It’s not necessarily excluding them as an audience.
I just don’t like children. The world would be better without them
Disgusting things, children. Glad I never was one!
Looking through the JRPGs I own, most of them with adult cast are western made. Depending on how far you go with j-influenced some might fit on your list. Zeboyd games is a western studio making JRPG like games with their own twist on them. Cosmic Star Heroine have a completely adult cast. Been years since I played through the Cthulhu games, but I remember the cast being mostly adults in them.
CrossCode from Radical Fish Games stretches what I consider a JRPG to be, but it still comes up in my library when searching for the tag. I think most of the cast were young adults rather than children.
Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark by 6 Eyes Studio is pretty much a Final Fantasy Tactics.
Parasite Eve and Persona 2: EP were always a bit striking to me in this regard especially because they are in modern-day settings. Also, they both don’t have a young child joining the party at any point, which is a thing in a lot of the games in this list.
This is a great compilation!
I would add an asterisk to FF12…the game starts off with a lead male child protagonist who wants to impress or rescue or whatever a female child playable character.
After the first chapter or so of the game, those two characters are completely irrelevant to the plot of the game, which is actually about the cast of adults.
Yes, the children are still there. Yes you have to control the boy as your overworld avatar.
There are some other children with more plot relevance, some of whom join the team.
I think the youngest plot-relevant child on the team is 19, but overall it’s not a “children save the world” plot.
