Because Xenosaga (The 3 games w/ Kos-Mos/Shion) came along and was like...
"Screw both of you. We have a deep, immersive plot based in JRPG style with a reasonable amount of grinding, extra hard bosses, and 'ultimate-equipment' Bite me."
Meanwhile in RPG-land, some dudes pressed a button for a linearized ending and some girl in JRPG land screamed helplessly only to be saved by an effeminate man(?)
Because Xenosaga (The 3 games w/ Kos-Mos/Shion) came along and was like...
"Screw both of you. We have a deep, immersive plot based in JRPG style with a reasonable amount of grinding, extra hard bosses, and 'ultimate-equipment' Bite me."
Meanwhile in RPG-land, some dudes pressed a button for a linearized ending and some girl in JRPG land screamed helplessly only to be saved by an effeminate man(?)
I see a heavy biased opinion about JRPGs here my friend. The fact you don't like the style doesn't meant the style to be bad.
When i read your post i automatic remember of games as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII Secret of Mana, Terranigma, Lufia, Tales of (many titles), robotrek, even games like Zelda, metal gear and parasite eve enter this list. At first i feel a bit upset with your statement, then i remember that you probally didn't played all these titles and suddently i start to feel sorry for you, you lose the chance to meet some of the most incredible games ever made, with awesome stories or maybe you just didn't had the critic sense to enjoy them in the time you gave a try, either way, it's a sad thing to know.
In my list of top RPG histories ever made Planescape Torment is put on 1° place, but following close is Final Fantasy VI (for PSX or III for SNES), with Chrono Trigger, Lufia, Baldur's Gate, Terranigma and Zelda following right behind. I love BG, but there are lots of awesome things outside to play, don't discard them based on a biased view of the Japanese game production.
I liked older JRPG's, I'm going to say Pre-PS2 era, and I still go back to play them time to time. FF VI and Chrono Trigger were AMAZING games imo, and lets not forget about Valkyrie Profile. I'm probably part of a very small minority, but for me the whole FF VII plot was questionable. I feel like the identity crisis felt forced and Vivi in FF IX had a much more complex and immersive backstory. And I've never really counted Zelda as being a JRPG, I've always considered it to be an "adventure" game following the story of link since I'm not actually playing the role of link as there are very few non-linear choices outside the puzzles and the combat.
For me though, I see FF X as the beginning of the end for the more traditional JRPG's (which is what I was mostly referring to. Some of the new ones have altered the bread and butter formula and become more like an interactive anime which is a category on its own in my book, Xenosaga falls into this Niche for me). I cannot look at anyone who takes that game seriously plot-wise and I felt FF XII really grasped at the air to get in another crystal-related plot with Princess Leia and her rebellion. It wasn't that the plot was necessarily BAD, I've just seen it before and it felt too formulaic for my tastes.
Recently though, Western RPG's have been suffering from what I like to call "Button-Push-Ending-Syndrome"
Mass Effect 3 (I liked the synthesis ending, but even that felt way too Deus Ex Machina imo) Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Technically square-enix, but it felt like an east/west hybrid to me) Fallout 3 Farcry 3
Just to name a few. Hours of immersion and making choices just to have the ending reflect one button push at the end or a simple morality agreement? Bleh. BG at least feels like a complete and whole ending despite the alignment simplicity.
Like you i totally prefer FF IX to VII @BattleHamster and while i will not enter the discussion of what is and what is not RPG cos we have different minds about the issue and it will be unproductive, most of the games you quoted there are also on my favorite list.
FFXII main issue despite the whole new combat system, that i really didn't mind but upset some of the old fans, was the lack of equilibrium between the side-quests with the main quest, the side quests were pratically 90% of the whole game content, so after a while making the side-quests we easly forgot why we were pursuing the main quest after all!
Mass Effect game was the most well done FPS-RPG game style but also my most disappointment with games, cos those ends in ME3, after an almost perfect triology really got me in rage.
@kamuizin Wait a second...Are you telling me you are agreeing to disagree? ... Who are you and what have you done with the internet?
FF XII could have been saved for me had they committed to making it an open world game where I made up the plot rather than trying to quickly ad-lib a plot into a pre-existing game. Just don't try to be something you aren't lol. I totally agree that mass effect was epicly disappointing. After investing the time I did into that game the large and expansive plot didn't matter because they ruined it with an ending that made no sense and solved this galactic problem with what amounted to a lever-pull. After going through all that, I was rather hoping for an ending involving the creator race of the Reapers at the very least. They could have used the same mechanics/ending devices but at least that would have made SOME sense.
i really liked Xenosaga (that R-Cannon was so OP but I loved it) and FF12. I honestly thought they could have just turned Xenosaga into a movie what with all the cutscenes it had. too bad it never made it to the 7 games it was originally planned for. FF12 to me was the closest I've seen to a east meets west kind of combination to RPGs.
I certainly like both western and JRPGs. Come to think of it, I haven't met anyone who prefers one over the other.
Listening to discussions on Final Fantasy the last 18 months especially has been a headache inducing experience. The self importance of some people is staggering, they will always announce ___ is their favourite and every other one sucked and will start harassing everyone who disagrees with them.
The silly thing is that they have been so varied that everyone has their favourite. Isn't that the point? 8 Is my favourite for nostalgia's sake. The plot is weak in points but the music and the world just triggers that feel good stuff for me. 13 is my favourite for characters (except for Vanille who makes me want to claw out my own eyes). 9 was the one that appealed to me the least, but each has their own strength and charm so its perfectly valid for people to have different feelings on them.
Breath of Fire 3 was my first rpg of any kind so I still like to go back and play it. If it were a new game introduced to me now I think I would hate it - the step, step, random battle and high failure rate of running away made it pretty frustrating. The dragon combos were cool.
I think it was here someone expressed a disappointment that the basic classic system doesn't really get made any more. I agree, just because the battle system has been used a long time and may prevent the fancier looking graphics/seamless feel that doesn't mean it doesn't have a place.
Listening to discussions on Final Fantasy the last 18 months especially has been a headache inducing experience. The self importance of some people is staggering, they will always announce ___ is their favourite and every other one sucked and will start harassing everyone who disagrees with them.
The silly thing is that they have been so varied that everyone has their favourite. Isn't that the point? 8 Is my favourite for nostalgia's sake. The plot is weak in points but the music and the world just triggers that feel good stuff for me. 13 is my favourite for characters (except for Vanille who makes me want to claw out my own eyes). 9 was the one that appealed to me the least, but each has their own strength and charm so its perfectly valid for people to have different feelings on them.
Breath of Fire 3 was my first rpg of any kind so I still like to go back and play it. If it were a new game introduced to me now I think I would hate it - the step, step, random battle and high failure rate of running away made it pretty frustrating. The dragon combos were cool.
I think it was here someone expressed a disappointment that the basic classic system doesn't really get made any more. I agree, just because the battle system has been used a long time and may prevent the fancier looking graphics/seamless feel that doesn't mean it doesn't have a place.
A like for the evaluation of the FF VIII ! The music and world really are awesome there, the opening of the game with an clip at the sound of "Liberi Fatali" is totally worth it!
Really like BoF III and while i didn't liked BoF IV so much as the III it's not unplayable and i enjoyined my time with it.
If you're after a true awesome story into an JRPG and don't mind outdated graphics, as i see you like final fantasy series i would suggest a go for FF VI from PSX (FF III in SNES), exist an enhanced edition of it for gameboy advanced with a cleaner and updated graphic and some extra content.
Meh...VII was just V+VI with some modern-ish sci-fi and early 3D/FMV thrown in (which 5 handling it's "Aerith moment" far better then 7 could ever dream of).
I think 2 FF games I think pretty much everyone can agree that people might want to stay away from are 2 and 11...
But FF is not the entirely the JRPG genre, Other stuff I can think of the top of my head that I can recommend looking up is the Tales series, Seiken Densetsu series (or Mana series as it's been localized as...) and The Last Remnant...
For RPGs from over here in the Western parts of the world there are good stuff too
Mass Effect (even though the ending of the series was less than good), Fallout New Vegas (I didn't really like 3), Baldur's Gate and I suppose Jagged Alliance sort of counts as an RPG...
Dragon Quest is pretty good as well, though it doesn't take itself too seriously (not that the stories and plots can't be just as serious as any other media), where as Final Fantasy has erred more on the serious side.
Meh...anything made by Bioware after BG is just BG with a new flavor...now with star wars..now with sci-fi FPS, now shiny new graphics and a lot of promise but a clunky interface and god-aweful sequel.
and their annoying habit of tossing sequels to Obsidian who then gets ridiculous time-requirements from Atari/Bethesda and has to shoulder the blame when every turns to $%#^.
NWN was ok-ish, if only because it was sold primarily around what you could do with it, instead of purely on it's story.
I sugget to watch the Lets Plays made by the GameHorder on Youtube. His raunchy attitude may be obnoxious to some but his LPs of old western RPGs are the best i could find, which sadly also shows how nieche these game are.
I don't think all JRPG fans hate western RPGs...that's like saying all RPG fans hate RTS games.
JRPGs and WRPGs are different variants of the same game. Just as modern military shooters are an off-shoot of FPS games, some FPS fans like them while others don't.
Somebody posted a Youtube video about the main difference between JRPGs and WRPGs, which I can't find right now, but the main gist of it was: JRPGs tend to be all about telling a story where you, the gamer, watch the story as an outside influence. WRPGs are usually all about telling a story where you are part of it, and you immerse yourself in the story as though the events are happening to you. If a JRPG is like watching a film, a WRPG is like doing LARP. Neither one is better or worse, it comes down to personal preference.
One possible reason is that WRPGs tend to make the story so that it can be played by any character, class, race, etc, therefore it's harder to make it specific to a single person (Dragon Age: Origins kind of got around this with the multiple origins intro thing). You have to be an orphaned/adopted/mysterious past character because it's the only way any race, class, and specialisation, can fit into the story. Hence, you often have no blood parents, few friends, and no real place in society. JRPGs often have pre-defined characters with a well written background, so condensing this into "you are a mysterious person of unknown origin, now save the world that you have no reason to care about!" might feel bland to someone used to "you are XXX, and you have lived in this world for 16 years, you have YYY parents and ZZZ friends, this is where you went to school, this is where you learned how to use a sword, this is your old weapons teacher, and this pretty girl is totally not your love interest, honest! Everyone you know is threatened unless you do something quickly (interspersed with multiple side-quests) to save the world!".
Of course, the best way is to strike a balance. We all felt attached to Gorion in Baldur's Gate, but although you could be any race, class, etc, you still had to be a mysterious person who grew up in Candlekeep under mysterious circumstances...in other words, Bioware took the best elements of both genres, and somehow made it work.
Anyway. As a JRPG fan, I have to say, I do not hate WRPGs. I like all kinds of RPGs; I learn toward J because I grew up with them, and I enjoy the living-a-novel-type storytelling.
But I have to say that as a person who's not afraid to say she enjoys JRPGs, I get a lot of flack for doing so, even on this forum. WRPG fans have told me that JRPGs aren't "real" RPGs (and what exactly makes a game a "real" RPG in the first place?), that every game is exactly the same, and reduced to dumbed-down anime poop catered to pedophiles. Except replace "poop" with a not-PG13-appropriate-word. Yeah.
So sure, some JRPG fans are probably asshats that stick their noses up at the notion of WRPGs, claiming that their chosen titles have "superior story-telling and characters and blah blah blah" ... I'd say the reverse is just as true for WRPG fans trash-talking the JRPG fans.
Why can't we all be friends? I mean, golly, guys, they both have RPG in the name!
I'd also like to point out that there are plenty of western style JRPGs (if that's the right way to refer to them) - that is, western themed RPGs that use the JRPG model. The Witcher, for example, gives you a character called Geralt, and very little about him is customisable - you can't choose his look, voice, etc - just level up certain skills. Is it anime? Not really...okay, some of the moves might look a bit anime (all the spins and jump-attacks etc) but Geralt certainly doesn't look like a typical anime character. There's also one set in medieval Europe called Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which I'm keeping a close eye on. In that game, you have to play as a blacksmith's son called Henry (though how much of his appearance you can customise remains to be seen). This one certainly isn't done in an anime style - they're going to great efforts to replicate realistic European martial arts (and this is actually their main selling point for the game). So is it the narrative style, or the anime graphics, actually, that make it a JRPG?
I'd also like to add that, although I personally am not a fan of anime, I can see the appeal for some people, and wouldn't dream of attacking someone for having a personal taste that's different to mine (unless they tell me that rock music is rubbish, in which case we are going to have a problem!! ). I don't play games like Final Fantasy, but know plenty of people who do, and that's okay. I'm sure many people wonder why I spend so much time playing Elite: Dangerous. Different people enjoy different games for different reasons, and enjoying one type of game shouldn't mean one isn't allowed to enjoy another type of game, or should be shunned by crowds who don't enjoy that type of game.
Incidentally, want to know what my favourite RPG of the moment is? Fallout: New Vegas. Seriously! It's the fact that they've actually brought attrition mechanics back, which is something I've seriously missed in modern RPGs from both sides of the tundra.
This is a neat video detailing hardcore into the birth of RPGs and such but at the end focuses on the JRPG. For my own opinion on the subject, I've actually found myself acting "less than civilized" when it comes to JRPGs. I love and I hate them. I've played many JRPGs such as Breath of Fire, most of the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, Parasite Eve (only played the first, though), Bravely Default, as well as many others. I can no longer go back to play them. I made a thread early on saying that Baldur's Gate ruined the JRPG for me. I just can't seem to be interested in playing as a pre-set character anymore and actually find a lot of their art styles to be incredibly boring. I enjoy JRPGs that fall into the SRPG category immensely, though. Final Fantasy Tactics is definitely in my top 5 favorite games of all time and I've adored all the western releases of the Fire Emblem franchise. As for as classic JRPG style I just cannot play them anymore. I barely made my way through Bravely Default as the last JRPG I've played. For some reason I can do Wizardry clones when it comes to turn based combat dungeon crawling but for Bravely Default it was just too much. The turn based combat was incredibly boring even with the Brave/Default system and eventually found a cheese tactic to win in every situation and just went with that because I couldn't be bothered to actually play the game. The story was 9/10 until Chapter 5 in which in my opinion things went WAAAAAYYY down hill. I'll not spoil anything but it feels like the writers went, "CRAP HOW DO WE MAKE THIS 30 HOUR GAME INTO 70!"
Anyway, because of my now distaste for JRPGs I've actually been more vocally hating on them even with my IRL friends, thus I've created a few rifts that could've been avoided but that's a flaw in my own personality I need to work on. I used to love JRPGs a lot but now unless they are a 0 story dungeon crawler or an SRPG I just don't bother with them anymore.
Though, could anyone recommend me a JRPG that could be in a realistic fantasy setting? I'm tired of characters like Luke in Tales of the Abyss showing their midriff and wearing no protective gear going into a fight with a sword vs giant robots. I prefer when fantasy is very grounded in reality+magic. It's one reason I like D&D games in that not wearing armor actually makes you more likely to get hit.
Though, could anyone recommend me a JRPG that could be in a realistic fantasy setting? I'm tired of characters like Luke in Tales of the Abyss showing their midriff and wearing no protective gear going into a fight with a sword vs giant robots.
It depends on how you classify a game as a JRPG. Is it the story, or the look/feel? Like I mentioned before, there are a few WRPGs that borrow a few things from JRPGs. You can find a few story-based RPGs with pre-made characters that are more European (and realistic) settings, but I haven't seen an anime-based RPG that's done in a wester style (except for World of Warcraft maybe ).
Also: that's another thing that puts me off JRPGs: the graphics, for that same reason. The armour typically looks ridiculous, and is generally either too much or too little...either there's so much metal that the poor guy would never be able to move (generally the case with men), or so little that you wonder why they even bother (generally the case with women).
You can find a few story-based RPGs with pre-made characters that are more European (and realistic) settings, but I haven't seen an anime-based RPG that's done in a western style (except for World of Warcraft maybe ).
Nevertheless, its pretty much a fact that WRPGs are nowhere near as popular as JRPGs. TeamFourStar is even making an abridged version of FFVII for Lathander's sake.
Anyway, because of my now distaste for JRPGs I've actually been more vocally hating on them even with my IRL friends, thus I've created a few rifts that could've been avoided but that's a flaw in my own personality I need to work on. I used to love JRPGs a lot but now unless they are a 0 story dungeon crawler or an SRPG I just don't bother with them anymore.
Though, could anyone recommend me a JRPG that could be in a realistic fantasy setting? I'm tired of characters like Luke in Tales of the Abyss showing their midriff and wearing no protective gear going into a fight with a sword vs giant robots. I prefer when fantasy is very grounded in reality+magic. It's one reason I like D&D games in that not wearing armor actually makes you more likely to get hit.
Nevertheless, its pretty much a fact that WRPGs are nowhere near as popular as JRPGs. TeamFourStar is even making an abridged version of FFVII for Lathander's sake.
Final Fantasy VII is in a league of popularity all its own.
Edit: Plus it's been super-hyped ever since E3, when Square finally announced that they were remaking it for the PS4. So TeamFourStar (and many other media creators) are just hopping on the hype train.
Nevertheless, its pretty much a fact that WRPGs are nowhere near as popular as JRPGs. TeamFourStar is even making an abridged version of FFVII for Lathander's sake.
Final Fantasy VII is in a league of popularity all its own.
Edit: Plus it's been super-hyped ever since E3, when Square finally announced that they were remaking it for the PS4. So TeamFourStar (and many other media creators) are just hopping on the hype train.
Really? Well, another game to add to my ''not to buy lista.''
Another point I'd like to add--because your post reminded me--is that, for some reason, a lot of video-game fans who dislike JRPGs seem to think that Final Fantasy VII is the end-all be-all to every single JRPG in existence.
It's not.
Final Fantasy VII is stupid popular. There are plenty of discussions and theories as to why this is, so do some research on your own time and draw your own conclusion. Point being, it's the only JRPG that I've ever seen to have such a juggernaut of a fanbase. It's gotten a movie, two or three spin-offs, cameos, millions of dollars in merchandising, billions of fan-projects, cosplayers, and overwhelming support from the whole video-game world. Support that other JRPG titles--the Tales of series, Star Ocean, Atelier games, and many others--would kill to have.
So I don't think it's very fair to put the whole of the JRPG genre on the same pedestal as Final Fantasy VII and just declare that because of this one game all of JRPGs are "more popular" than WRPGs. So JRPGs have Final Fantasy VII. You know what WRPGs have? Elder Scrolls. Dragon Age. Mass Effect. Fallout. Dark Souls. Games so popular and well-received they get commercials broadcasted on public television sharing just how awesome they are.
(Not that public television is somehow the end-all be-all determining factor of a game's popularity either, but when was the last time you saw a JRPG being advertised on tv? No seriously, honest question. When?)
I definately prefer the western style of cRPGs, some of them just feel like home. Whereas JRPGs tend to have a very elaborate gameplay, especially when it comes to fighting. However, one thing really makes me bounce right away when I see a JRPG - the design. Those oversized weapons, weird armors, clothes, areas and so on. It makes me think that the designers are trying too hard to be original - this trend is visible in WRPGs for some years as well. So, it's not that I generally dislike JRPGs, it's that they more often have that silly design.
There's the exception though. I love Golden Sun on GBA. This game caught me off guard, by how awesome it is. Really enjoy the world, the characters, the combat and the music. The atmopshere in this game is so well made, definately one of my top cRPGs.
The primary difference, if we're going to talk about codified differences between them, is that JRPGs give you your protagonist, and WRPGs make you create one to represent "you".
In both instances, you're roleplaying, because you're playing the role of someone other than yourself. You are expected to make choices, but even in WRPGs you don't have total freedom of choice (and in fact, the best WRPGs have very few choices).
JRPGs take that limitation to heart, and use the format of an "RPG" (leveling systems, inventory, formulaic combat) to tell a story.
WRPGs, by and large, try to give the player as much freedom of decision as possible, which has varying degrees of success.
In both cases, it depends on the execution. If a JRPG isn't telling a good story to begin with, it's not going to be a good game. If a WRPG spends too much time trying to give the player choices, and doesn't spend enough time making those choices matter, or forgets to include any sort of through-line or impetus for the player to take part in the story (most of the Elder Scrolls games), it's not going to be a good game either.
JRPG fans tend to prefer JRPGs because the formula is harder to mess up: you're only worrying about one story, rather than a half-dozen or more possible stories based on player choices. WRPG fans tend to prefer WRPGs because it's really the holy grail of player freedom, if a game can pull it off.
For myself, I prefer story over choice. When I sit down to play an RPG, I want to be told a good story. I don't care so much about whether or not I agree with it. So when I look at a game, I look at the story first, and whether it's a JRPG or a WRPG last.
Baldur's Gate is kind of half-way between the two. You create your "avatar", but the given circumstances and backstory of that avatar are dictated by the game and the plot is based on who and what your avatar is.
Bam, this is it! End of story!
Alot of the hatred I've seen on these forums from people who don't call jrpg, rpgs; you can literally attached to crpg INCLUDING BALDUR'S GATE!
Only Rpg I've seen that actually fit the the concept of rpg is... Well just that, tabletop and larping.
It's simply really a lot of Japanese people are focused, driven, business minded folk and the lack of multiple spread sheets in western RPGs combat systems scares them.
Note: I actually quite like playing JRPGs now and then.
There's the exception though. I love Golden Sun on GBA. This game caught me off guard, by how awesome it is. Really enjoy the world, the characters, the combat and the music. The atmopshere in this game is so well made, definately one of my top cRPGs.
I might have beaten both GBA titles six times over. >_>;;
Comments
"Screw both of you. We have a deep, immersive plot based in JRPG style with a reasonable amount of grinding, extra hard bosses, and 'ultimate-equipment' Bite me."
Meanwhile in RPG-land, some dudes pressed a button for a linearized ending and some girl in JRPG land screamed helplessly only to be saved by an effeminate man(?)
When i read your post i automatic remember of games as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, VII, VIII Secret of Mana, Terranigma, Lufia, Tales of (many titles), robotrek, even games like Zelda, metal gear and parasite eve enter this list. At first i feel a bit upset with your statement, then i remember that you probally didn't played all these titles and suddently i start to feel sorry for you, you lose the chance to meet some of the most incredible games ever made, with awesome stories or maybe you just didn't had the critic sense to enjoy them in the time you gave a try, either way, it's a sad thing to know.
In my list of top RPG histories ever made Planescape Torment is put on 1° place, but following close is Final Fantasy VI (for PSX or III for SNES), with Chrono Trigger, Lufia, Baldur's Gate, Terranigma and Zelda following right behind. I love BG, but there are lots of awesome things outside to play, don't discard them based on a biased view of the Japanese game production.
For me though, I see FF X as the beginning of the end for the more traditional JRPG's (which is what I was mostly referring to. Some of the new ones have altered the bread and butter formula and become more like an interactive anime which is a category on its own in my book, Xenosaga falls into this Niche for me). I cannot look at anyone who takes that game seriously plot-wise and I felt FF XII really grasped at the air to get in another crystal-related plot with Princess Leia and her rebellion. It wasn't that the plot was necessarily BAD, I've just seen it before and it felt too formulaic for my tastes.
Recently though, Western RPG's have been suffering from what I like to call "Button-Push-Ending-Syndrome"
Mass Effect 3 (I liked the synthesis ending, but even that felt way too Deus Ex Machina imo)
Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Technically square-enix, but it felt like an east/west hybrid to me)
Fallout 3
Farcry 3
Just to name a few. Hours of immersion and making choices just to have the ending reflect one button push at the end or a simple morality agreement? Bleh. BG at least feels like a complete and whole ending despite the alignment simplicity.
FFXII main issue despite the whole new combat system, that i really didn't mind but upset some of the old fans, was the lack of equilibrium between the side-quests with the main quest, the side quests were pratically 90% of the whole game content, so after a while making the side-quests we easly forgot why we were pursuing the main quest after all!
Mass Effect game was the most well done FPS-RPG game style but also my most disappointment with games, cos those ends in ME3, after an almost perfect triology really got me in rage.
Wait a second...Are you telling me you are agreeing to disagree?
...
Who are you and what have you done with the internet?
FF XII could have been saved for me had they committed to making it an open world game where I made up the plot rather than trying to quickly ad-lib a plot into a pre-existing game. Just don't try to be something you aren't lol. I totally agree that mass effect was epicly disappointing. After investing the time I did into that game the large and expansive plot didn't matter because they ruined it with an ending that made no sense and solved this galactic problem with what amounted to a lever-pull. After going through all that, I was rather hoping for an ending involving the creator race of the Reapers at the very least. They could have used the same mechanics/ending devices but at least that would have made SOME sense.
I certainly like both western and JRPGs. Come to think of it, I haven't met anyone who prefers one over the other.
The silly thing is that they have been so varied that everyone has their favourite. Isn't that the point? 8 Is my favourite for nostalgia's sake. The plot is weak in points but the music and the world just triggers that feel good stuff for me. 13 is my favourite for characters (except for Vanille who makes me want to claw out my own eyes). 9 was the one that appealed to me the least, but each has their own strength and charm so its perfectly valid for people to have different feelings on them.
Breath of Fire 3 was my first rpg of any kind so I still like to go back and play it. If it were a new game introduced to me now I think I would hate it - the step, step, random battle and high failure rate of running away made it pretty frustrating. The dragon combos were cool.
I think it was here someone expressed a disappointment that the basic classic system doesn't really get made any more. I agree, just because the battle system has been used a long time and may prevent the fancier looking graphics/seamless feel that doesn't mean it doesn't have a place.
Really like BoF III and while i didn't liked BoF IV so much as the III it's not unplayable and i enjoyined my time with it.
If you're after a true awesome story into an JRPG and don't mind outdated graphics, as i see you like final fantasy series i would suggest a go for FF VI from PSX (FF III in SNES), exist an enhanced edition of it for gameboy advanced with a cleaner and updated graphic and some extra content.
But FF is not the entirely the JRPG genre, Other stuff I can think of the top of my head that I can recommend looking up is the Tales series, Seiken Densetsu series (or Mana series as it's been localized as...) and The Last Remnant...
For RPGs from over here in the Western parts of the world there are good stuff too
Mass Effect (even though the ending of the series was less than good), Fallout New Vegas (I didn't really like 3), Baldur's Gate and I suppose Jagged Alliance sort of counts as an RPG...
Meh...anything made by Bioware after BG is just BG with a new flavor...now with star wars..now with sci-fi FPS, now shiny new graphics and a lot of promise but a clunky interface and god-aweful sequel.
and their annoying habit of tossing sequels to Obsidian who then gets ridiculous time-requirements from Atari/Bethesda and has to shoulder the blame when every turns to $%#^.
NWN was ok-ish, if only because it was sold primarily around what you could do with it, instead of purely on it's story.
JRPGs and WRPGs are different variants of the same game. Just as modern military shooters are an off-shoot of FPS games, some FPS fans like them while others don't.
Somebody posted a Youtube video about the main difference between JRPGs and WRPGs, which I can't find right now, but the main gist of it was: JRPGs tend to be all about telling a story where you, the gamer, watch the story as an outside influence. WRPGs are usually all about telling a story where you are part of it, and you immerse yourself in the story as though the events are happening to you. If a JRPG is like watching a film, a WRPG is like doing LARP. Neither one is better or worse, it comes down to personal preference.
One possible reason is that WRPGs tend to make the story so that it can be played by any character, class, race, etc, therefore it's harder to make it specific to a single person (Dragon Age: Origins kind of got around this with the multiple origins intro thing). You have to be an orphaned/adopted/mysterious past character because it's the only way any race, class, and specialisation, can fit into the story. Hence, you often have no blood parents, few friends, and no real place in society. JRPGs often have pre-defined characters with a well written background, so condensing this into "you are a mysterious person of unknown origin, now save the world that you have no reason to care about!" might feel bland to someone used to "you are XXX, and you have lived in this world for 16 years, you have YYY parents and ZZZ friends, this is where you went to school, this is where you learned how to use a sword, this is your old weapons teacher, and this pretty girl is totally not your love interest, honest! Everyone you know is threatened unless you do something quickly (interspersed with multiple side-quests) to save the world!".
Of course, the best way is to strike a balance. We all felt attached to Gorion in Baldur's Gate, but although you could be any race, class, etc, you still had to be a mysterious person who grew up in Candlekeep under mysterious circumstances...in other words, Bioware took the best elements of both genres, and somehow made it work.
(The first of three parts.)
Anyway. As a JRPG fan, I have to say, I do not hate WRPGs. I like all kinds of RPGs; I learn toward J because I grew up with them, and I enjoy the living-a-novel-type storytelling.
But I have to say that as a person who's not afraid to say she enjoys JRPGs, I get a lot of flack for doing so, even on this forum. WRPG fans have told me that JRPGs aren't "real" RPGs (and what exactly makes a game a "real" RPG in the first place?), that every game is exactly the same, and reduced to dumbed-down anime poop catered to pedophiles. Except replace "poop" with a not-PG13-appropriate-word. Yeah.
So sure, some JRPG fans are probably asshats that stick their noses up at the notion of WRPGs, claiming that their chosen titles have "superior story-telling and characters and blah blah blah" ... I'd say the reverse is just as true for WRPG fans trash-talking the JRPG fans.
Why can't we all be friends? I mean, golly, guys, they both have RPG in the name!
I'd also like to point out that there are plenty of western style JRPGs (if that's the right way to refer to them) - that is, western themed RPGs that use the JRPG model. The Witcher, for example, gives you a character called Geralt, and very little about him is customisable - you can't choose his look, voice, etc - just level up certain skills. Is it anime? Not really...okay, some of the moves might look a bit anime (all the spins and jump-attacks etc) but Geralt certainly doesn't look like a typical anime character. There's also one set in medieval Europe called Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which I'm keeping a close eye on. In that game, you have to play as a blacksmith's son called Henry (though how much of his appearance you can customise remains to be seen). This one certainly isn't done in an anime style - they're going to great efforts to replicate realistic European martial arts (and this is actually their main selling point for the game). So is it the narrative style, or the anime graphics, actually, that make it a JRPG?
I'd also like to add that, although I personally am not a fan of anime, I can see the appeal for some people, and wouldn't dream of attacking someone for having a personal taste that's different to mine (unless they tell me that rock music is rubbish, in which case we are going to have a problem!!
Incidentally, want to know what my favourite RPG of the moment is? Fallout: New Vegas. Seriously! It's the fact that they've actually brought attrition mechanics back, which is something I've seriously missed in modern RPGs from both sides of the tundra.
Anyway, because of my now distaste for JRPGs I've actually been more vocally hating on them even with my IRL friends, thus I've created a few rifts that could've been avoided but that's a flaw in my own personality I need to work on. I used to love JRPGs a lot but now unless they are a 0 story dungeon crawler or an SRPG I just don't bother with them anymore.
Though, could anyone recommend me a JRPG that could be in a realistic fantasy setting? I'm tired of characters like Luke in Tales of the Abyss showing their midriff and wearing no protective gear going into a fight with a sword vs giant robots. I prefer when fantasy is very grounded in reality+magic. It's one reason I like D&D games in that not wearing armor actually makes you more likely to get hit.
Also: that's another thing that puts me off JRPGs: the graphics, for that same reason. The armour typically looks ridiculous, and is generally either too much or too little...either there's so much metal that the poor guy would never be able to move (generally the case with men), or so little that you wonder why they even bother (generally the case with women).
By Yuffie:
(Wait... You mean that's not what you meant by "western"?
Edit: Plus it's been super-hyped ever since E3, when Square finally announced that they were remaking it for the PS4. So TeamFourStar (and many other media creators) are just hopping on the hype train.
It's not.
Final Fantasy VII is stupid popular. There are plenty of discussions and theories as to why this is, so do some research on your own time and draw your own conclusion. Point being, it's the only JRPG that I've ever seen to have such a juggernaut of a fanbase. It's gotten a movie, two or three spin-offs, cameos, millions of dollars in merchandising, billions of fan-projects, cosplayers, and overwhelming support from the whole video-game world. Support that other JRPG titles--the Tales of series, Star Ocean, Atelier games, and many others--would kill to have.
So I don't think it's very fair to put the whole of the JRPG genre on the same pedestal as Final Fantasy VII and just declare that because of this one game all of JRPGs are "more popular" than WRPGs. So JRPGs have Final Fantasy VII. You know what WRPGs have? Elder Scrolls. Dragon Age. Mass Effect. Fallout. Dark Souls. Games so popular and well-received they get commercials broadcasted on public television sharing just how awesome they are.
(Not that public television is somehow the end-all be-all determining factor of a game's popularity either, but when was the last time you saw a JRPG being advertised on tv? No seriously, honest question. When?)
There's the exception though. I love Golden Sun on GBA. This game caught me off guard, by how awesome it is. Really enjoy the world, the characters, the combat and the music. The atmopshere in this game is so well made, definately one of my top cRPGs.
Alot of the hatred I've seen on these forums from people who don't call jrpg, rpgs; you can literally attached to crpg INCLUDING BALDUR'S GATE!
Only Rpg I've seen that actually fit the the concept of rpg is... Well just that, tabletop and larping.
Note: I actually quite like playing JRPGs now and then.
I might have beaten both GBA titles six times over. >_>;;