JRPGs are a sub-genre of Roleplaying games that often play up more to tropes that originated in Japanese games, rather than Western RPGs. There might be some crossover on occasion, especially with newer releases often borrowing some ideas from Western RPGs.
Where this genre truly shines is the addictive types of gameplay introduced with each game and the compelling stories that drive players to want to continue their adventures further. Which while these games are fun to play and peak into the world of, most players would agree that living in these worlds probably wouldn't be as fun as playing through them.
10 The World Is Against The Hero
A common trope that plenty of JRPGs implements at some point, even if they don't start with it, the world will turn against the hero. Games like Tales of Berseria have the main character's party portrayed as the villains when in reality they're the ones trying to save the world.
While it makes for an interesting storytelling element, it certainly wouldn't be fun to live through. Realistically, if the player was some nefarious criminal with the forces of the world's strongest army against them, most businesses would turn them down out of fear or out of disgust.
9 Random Battles Would Get Old After A While
One completely unavoidable thing that every JRPG protagonist would have to contend with is random encounters. These can happen as the hero minds their own business, moving to the next major location. The worst part is that these encounters bring the player into contact with all sorts of strange foes.
These enemies can come in all shapes and sizes, they can be as simple as the slime from the Dragon Quest series, to as deceptive as the Final Fantasy Tonberry. Either way, the protagonist has no way of knowing what enemies to take seriously, and which to treat as an easy victory.
8 Power Leveling Is Tiring To Live Through
If the hero wants any hope of defeating the main villain, they're expected to level themselves up. It sounds simple at the outset, especially as a player looking into the world. But there's so much more work that goes into power leveling for the actual character living through it.
The hero is expected to fight hundreds, if not thousands of enemies all in the hopes of getting stronger. Realistically, that would exhaust any person to the point of being near death. That's not including some games that require the player to be near death to receive more experience points.
7 Managing An Entire Party Is Hard Work
This is one that most players probably don't think about, but in most JRPGs, the player can assume direct control over their party member's actions. This is great for strategizing on how to beat challenging foes. Where this quickly falls apart is the fact that the hero realistically doesn't control what their allies do.
This can be seen as a good thing, or as a bad thing like in the earlier Persona games. Of course, combat management isn't the only type of party management the hero would be expecting to do, they'd also expect to manage what items their team has equipped. While as a player, making a party member switch out a cherished item for a better one is easy; as the hero, it probably wouldn't be that easy.
6 Losing Allies Would Be Traumatic
This isn't necessarily guaranteed to happen in every JRPG, but it has happened in plenty of these games. The hero will lose a party member, either through a voluntary departure or through a permanent death that can't just be fixed with a revive spell.
Apart from the emotional distress that this would cause the hero, there's also the fact that this character's death would likely affect the greater party dynamic. This is very much the case with Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, who serves as a great healer for most of the first half of the game, but when she's killed, the player now has to rethink a lot of their strategies.
5 Fetch Quests Are Insulting
Fetch Quests are something that even players on the outside of these game worlds despise. It's so much worse for the hero who has to live through completing these mundane tasks and not knowing what they'll get from it. These tasks can be as mundane as gathering some berries, to as extreme as fighting a dozen of a challenging enemy type.
Regardless, having to do these tasks instead of saving the world would be extremely insulting to any aspiring hero that wants to make a major difference in the world. They're the hero, not someone to just push a bunch of chores on.
4 Committing Crimes "For The Greater Good"
The case for committing crimes for the greater good is something the player won't think twice about, but the hero in the world of the game would. A great example of this is in The Legend of Zelda series, where Link breaks into countless houses and smashes pots to get the Rupees stored within them.
How does Link know that these Hyrule citizens weren't storing their hard-earned Rupees in these pots? Of course, there's no way he could know because he never asks, he just breaks everything, takes the money, and runs off like some low-grade criminal.
3 Obnoxious Arch Enemies Would Get In The Way
What is a hero without their arch-nemesis? Not really in that much danger. Most JRPG heroes do have some arch-enemy they have to fight who constantly impedes their path to build tension. This enemy can be the main antagonist of the game or just a recurring foe that exists only to annoy the hero.
The better antagonists hide their intentions by pretending to be allies through most of the adventure, only to stab the hero in the back. The earlier Pokémon games have played up to this trope plenty of times, by giving the hero a rival that constantly shows up, talks down on them, and loses before running off and bragging about how better they are.
2 Getting Lost In Confusing Plot Elements
What is a JRPG if not confusing to understand at times? At least the ones that are parts of longer series. It's often around the later half of the game where the hero gets the villain's plot explained to them and to say that it isn't confusing would be wrong.
Villains tend to come up with some of the most convoluted plans for world domination or prophecy fulfillment. The Kingdom Hearts series introducing time travel is one of the clearest examples of the plot becoming more confusing. If the player has trouble grasping these new concepts, then what hope does the hero have of it?
1 Having To Fight A Deity
Fighting against a deity is commonplace in JRPGs. Plenty of examples range from the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series to Xenoblade Chronicles. This wouldn't be easy in the slightest as the hero.
Gods are divine entities that take more than just a sword to kill in most cases. What ends up winning the day most of the time for the hero is a cliche, the fabled power of friendship is what usually ends up doing the trick. But this usually doesn't come before suffering some major beat down from the deity, and that would be the worst part of being a JRPG protagonist.