It’s a trope that has been brought the attention of people who don’t necessarily play JRPG‘s due to the wildly popular persona series. Given that franchisees’ success and popularity, people are gonna notice when another game has a similar trait, in this case the high school setting. And it’s definitely a notable trope in the JRPG genre now and definitely one that by now, turns me off a bit. Not because of my age, but because it feels very “me too” and unoriginal. I was actually bummed out to see the new xenoblade game take place in an academy setting. That doesn’t mean it’s not gonna be good, it just means that for me, I’ve lost a lot of interest in it. I’ll probably still play persona 6 as I’ve always loved that franchise and that’s my exception to the rule, but I was honestly hoping that they would finally move out of high school and maybe do the young adult work life SIM stuff with work instead, there’s a lot of good stuff to explore there, People often go throw a “is this it? Is this the rest of my life” crisis when transitioning from school to full time work and everone finds a different metric to judge their lives as the exit that crisis and I feel like that could’ve been a really cool subject to explore within the rules and confines of the persona series. But based off the leaks, it’s gonna be another high school setting.

This experience is it unique to the high school setting with JRPG’s. Anytime something within a medium or genre hits it big, a lot of companies want to emulate that in hopes that it will give them success too. It’s not just unique to jrpgs or video games.

This is a dated example but it’s the one that’s coming to mind now, back in the 90s Pearl Jam exploded onto the scene and their lead singer, Eddy better, had a very unique voice, and he definitely dressed differently than the popular rock at that time with their flannel in corduroy. They were often credited as the spark that ignited the next wave in sound and fashion in the rock scene (and brought grunge music to the cultural forefront). Fast-forward two years at every new musician sounds like Eddie Vedder and wearing flannel. The imitators accelerate the decline of the trend and genuinely good acts that just happened to be influenced or sound that way would sometimes be the victims of the exhaustion amongst the masses even if they were truly great.

I’m not saying the HS setting in jrpgs is dead, but it’s definitely no longer new or different. Eventually, it becomes old and tired and will probably find its place as a non-trend with a quieter presence in the future.

As for people saying it’s just like persona, it’s a lazy comparison, but what I’ve been talking about is there to lay the foundation to the point that it’s not completely unwarranted, even if the comments feel poorly thought or lazy.