jRPG's aren't RPGs.
SorcererV1ct0r
Member Posts: 2,176
What is a role playing game? A game who focus on playing a role, making decisions on how your character will be, impacting people around you, etc. If you always play with a generic androgynous teenager with an oversized sword in the same hero's journey to save the world, and can't decide anything, then you are not playing a RPG game. Many people say that wRPG tends to have poor story, it is partially truth. Most modern wRPGs have bad story. But classics are different.
Arcanum is a traditional fantasy universe under a industrial revolution. Gnomes, Elves, Humans, Orcs, each race react in a different way and in a part of the game, you see undeads being used for mass production. A undead is the perfect worker. No pauses, no salary, no wages, no fatique, is litearlly 24/7 hours of cheap labor. If it is ethic or not is up to the player decide. And on VtMB, each vampire clan have his story and a playtrough with a Tremere character and with a Nosferatu character are completely different. The devs even added unique dialog options to Malkavian, "vampires" cursed with insanity. Not to mention Witcher and Dragon Age Origins.
In fact, i never saw mature themes on jRPG "story rich" games. When i means mature, is not necessary fan service, if you play Dragon Age Origins as an elf, you will suffer racism in the game. Even slavery elves suffer on the game and they you can choose what to do with the responsible...
Mount & Blade barely have any story and is a RPG, in fact an amazing sandbox RPG. Instead of a world of only filler content, actions have consequences on M&B. Raid a village have consequences, take a city, trade, etc too... And you can't be a bad of "grey" guy on jRPGs. Most people aren't 100% good or bad. Be able to be a racist elf on Arcanum who hates any non elf is possible and have consequences in story, party members and NPCs around you. Also, if having story or a role to play, make a game RPG, than almost everything is a RPG, from God of War to Call of Duty. Here is a video who talks more about jRPGs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87_HHhaAHo0
At 2:00 "Visual novels tends to have way more RPG elements than jRPG"
And he is right. Mentioning a comment on his video
comment from shadow0106 on video above
I grew up playing j-rpgs in the 90's and early 2000's on ps1 and ps2 (on my teenager years), but as soon as i grew older and began playing games exclusively on pc, and got to know better real rpg games like Baldur's Gate I and II, Planescape Torment, The Witcher franchise, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights series, Dragon Age Origins, etc, i just finally realized that j-rpgs can't be considered rpgs at all (yes, i've played tabletop rpgs before that, but until that point i hadn't really stop to think if j-rpgs could be considered rpgs or not), after that i couldn't really play the majority of jrpgs anymore, because the overused anime art style (only a few japanese developers dare to put aside that anime art style and make something really unique) and boring turn-based combat systems never changed
I an different. Always was a PC game, played a little ps1/ps2, but PC was always my main platform. The first RPG that i have played was Might and Magic VII. When i played FF 7 tanks to a friend who recommended the game, i wasn't able to pass the first CD and become bored pretty quickly.
"Bioware developer says JRPGs are not RPGs."
Talking with Strategy Informer about the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Daniel Erickson, Writing Director for Bioware said that Final Fantasy XIII isn't an RPG. This was in reply to a question about the main staple of The Old Republic being its story, and how the game might be affected without good game play to support it, much like Final Fantasy XIII was.
"Well, before I address the main point I just want to take a slightly more controversial route: You can put a 'J' in front of it, but it's not an RPG. You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character... I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe? But they're not RPG's." said Erickson." source http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/bioware-developer-says-jrpgs-are-not-rpgs.453131195/
Arcanum is a traditional fantasy universe under a industrial revolution. Gnomes, Elves, Humans, Orcs, each race react in a different way and in a part of the game, you see undeads being used for mass production. A undead is the perfect worker. No pauses, no salary, no wages, no fatique, is litearlly 24/7 hours of cheap labor. If it is ethic or not is up to the player decide. And on VtMB, each vampire clan have his story and a playtrough with a Tremere character and with a Nosferatu character are completely different. The devs even added unique dialog options to Malkavian, "vampires" cursed with insanity. Not to mention Witcher and Dragon Age Origins.
In fact, i never saw mature themes on jRPG "story rich" games. When i means mature, is not necessary fan service, if you play Dragon Age Origins as an elf, you will suffer racism in the game. Even slavery elves suffer on the game and they you can choose what to do with the responsible...
Mount & Blade barely have any story and is a RPG, in fact an amazing sandbox RPG. Instead of a world of only filler content, actions have consequences on M&B. Raid a village have consequences, take a city, trade, etc too... And you can't be a bad of "grey" guy on jRPGs. Most people aren't 100% good or bad. Be able to be a racist elf on Arcanum who hates any non elf is possible and have consequences in story, party members and NPCs around you. Also, if having story or a role to play, make a game RPG, than almost everything is a RPG, from God of War to Call of Duty. Here is a video who talks more about jRPGs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87_HHhaAHo0At 2:00 "Visual novels tends to have way more RPG elements than jRPG"
And he is right. Mentioning a comment on his video
comment from shadow0106 on video above
I grew up playing j-rpgs in the 90's and early 2000's on ps1 and ps2 (on my teenager years), but as soon as i grew older and began playing games exclusively on pc, and got to know better real rpg games like Baldur's Gate I and II, Planescape Torment, The Witcher franchise, Icewind Dale, Neverwinter Nights series, Dragon Age Origins, etc, i just finally realized that j-rpgs can't be considered rpgs at all (yes, i've played tabletop rpgs before that, but until that point i hadn't really stop to think if j-rpgs could be considered rpgs or not), after that i couldn't really play the majority of jrpgs anymore, because the overused anime art style (only a few japanese developers dare to put aside that anime art style and make something really unique) and boring turn-based combat systems never changed
I an different. Always was a PC game, played a little ps1/ps2, but PC was always my main platform. The first RPG that i have played was Might and Magic VII. When i played FF 7 tanks to a friend who recommended the game, i wasn't able to pass the first CD and become bored pretty quickly.
"Bioware developer says JRPGs are not RPGs."
Talking with Strategy Informer about the upcoming release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, Daniel Erickson, Writing Director for Bioware said that Final Fantasy XIII isn't an RPG. This was in reply to a question about the main staple of The Old Republic being its story, and how the game might be affected without good game play to support it, much like Final Fantasy XIII was.
"Well, before I address the main point I just want to take a slightly more controversial route: You can put a 'J' in front of it, but it's not an RPG. You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character... I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe? But they're not RPG's." said Erickson." source http://www.ign.com/boards/threads/bioware-developer-says-jrpgs-are-not-rpgs.453131195/
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Comments
The problem with NOT calling them RPGs is that almost all of them derive from Wizardry by way of Dragon Quest on the original NES. That is ground zero for the JRPG phenomena, and there isn't a single game more responsible for that coming to pass than the original wire-frame Wizardry games.
I agree a vast majority of them are boring as hell and that I vastly prefer Western RPGs, mostly because almost all of them focus on D&D-style sword and sorcery. But it's impossible to exclude them from the genre entirely.
Even your own definition "A game who focus on playing a role, making decisions on how your character will be" has a kind of contradiction - whether you have a role to follow or freedom to do what you want. I.e. the better definition would be "where your are free to choose the role you want to play".
And then there's a whole new dimension of character progression (stats/levels), stat checks, etc.
I'd say the problem came from the fact that earliest RPGs were dungeon crawling hack-n-slashers, but as time went on people began to question the name and look for other meanings of it. So the answer mostly depends on where on that time scale you are standing.
But honestly I can appreciate a story told in the linear JRPG structure, but because japanese game developers are so close minded and archaic..They tend to aim the games towards a younger generation, because that's how their culture has been for a long time. The fact that an older audience might appreciate them didn't seem to cross their mind.
I think that mindset is more of a problem for me, than the lack of ''roleplaying''
I personally don't consider Diablo 3 a RPG either(developed on west). Hell, even Far Cry 3 have more RPG elements than D3 and FC3 is a shooter. I don't think that critique = hate. I like FPS and read many critiques to genre. Same applies to RPGs. This image is not "hate". Is just a critique.
Japan make amazing anime and novels based on RPG, for example : Overlord. About story, as i've said, i like complex stories like VtMB, each vampire clan have his unique story.
As time went on, stories in games became more commonplace, as straight up action games these days can tell a gripping story and get you invested in characters.
For me, the RPG has always had very important points to hit.
1. It puts you in a world that feels very real. People live here and have their own troubles.
2. The game's main focus is on telling a story. Whether its open and you can take your pace, or linear and focused.
3. CHaracters that you can meet, learn about, help each other and befriend. THey would feel more like real people than contemporaries from other genres.
4. Character progression. Whatever power level you start at, your character needs to feel changed in some way from how they started.
As long as a game hits all these points, its an RPG in my book.
this argument has always been kinda silly to me. jrpgs are just a different style of rpg. if we use the logic people use nowadays that rpgs must be about making choices then wizardy, ultima , and alot of early 80's computer rpgs arnt rpgs.
See at 4:17 here
The lack of more in deph RPG elements is more due hardware limitations than anything else. But honestly, wRPGs are losing RPG elements(compare DA:O with DA2 and inquisition) and soon will be little difference between wRPG and jRPG. Even if you compare the same game. WoW after Cataclysm lost almost all RPG elements.
Also, the lines are blurring between the two, as both genres are learning from each other and using mechanics that work. It occurred to me that one of my favourite recent RPGs, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, has many JRPG mechanics. I can't speak for JRPGs using WRPG mechanics as I don't play them, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were.
Finally, much as I like Mount and Blade, I'm not sure I'd call it an RPG.
Another video (which I can't find right now) made the case that JRPGs put you on the outside, watching the story, while WRPGs pull you into the story to live it.
JRPG stories are more tailored to the character because they only have to be made for one character, so as a result they can have more depth and be more fine-tuned to fit a specific character. WRPG stories have to work with a half drow half demon paladin-ninja-assassin as well as a human fighter, so they have to be much broader and less tailored as a result (which is why you often have a lightly-glossed over history and have to fill in many of the blanks yourself).
Neither style is inherently bad, it's just down to personal preferences.
And after it, WoW started to bleed subs like crazy. WoW din't lost subs even during the 2008 crisis but after cataclysm... Now Blizzard isn't reporting the subs number more. "There are other metrics that are better indicators of the overall Blizzard business performance." https://www.gamespot.com/articles/blizzard-will-no-longer-report-world-of-warcraft-s/1100-6431943/
Here is a complete(and big) list of RPG elements that WoW lost.
Class & combat:
Rogues had to craft their own poisons with special labs spread across the world.
Rogues could deactivate traps.
Rogues had to train lockpicking by opening lockboxes around the world. Special gloves even existed to help you.
Stealth used to have levels and could be more or less effective. Items such as Nightscape Boots helped you being less detectable. Also, as they were sneaking, rogues moved slower when stealthed.
Hunter started without any pet and had a quest to teach them how to tame one, enhancing the link between them. Now they automatically start with one. Same for Warlock and their first demon.
Hunter could use Eyes of the Beast to see through the eyes of its pet.
Hunter's pet had an happiness bar and a loyalty property to manage by feeding them with appropriate food. If done wrong, the pet would do lesser damage or even leave you.
Hunters had 3 pets max. Each ones feel special. Now they carry a whole zoo in their bags.
Hunters couldn't attack in melee range with ranged weapons.
Bows and guns require ammunitions you had to craft/buy and put in special ammo bags. This could lead to awkward situations
Warriors and rogues were able to use ranged weapons.
Warlocks had to get and carry soulshards in special bags.
Warlocks had a Detect Invisibility spell.
Warlock's Ritual of Doom needed four other people to summon the Doomguard... and one of them was randomly sacrificed! With great power came great responsability.
Death Knight's Raise Ally spell bring back people as... ghouls!
Druids turned into tree form to heal.
Priests had 2 uniques Racial abilities.
Mages have a Detect Magic spell and even a Khadgar’s unlocking (in beta) to crack lockboxes.
Mages, Warlocks and blacksmiths could craft various oils and grindstones to buff weapons.
Paladins could be played only by Alliance while Shamans were only for Horde.
Weapons require skills, including hand fighting. If you equipped a kind of weapon that you didn't know yet, you needed to use it a lot before doing max DPS. You also needed to see a weapon trainer first.
Speaking of trainers, you had to see a trainer in town to learn your new class skill/spell. Now it automatically spawn in your action bar as you level.
Some spells only worked on specific mobs, strengthening the lore. Paladin's exorcism for example was to be used against undead/demons while now it works the same on any mobs.
Magic/fire/frost resistance gears were useful against specific boss. Once again it strengthen the lore. Some mobs had fire resistance too and/or were weak against frost spells. Frost resistance gear was vital against Sapphiron etc.
Classes were a lot more different: in term of rotation, but also some didn't have any interrupt, or any cc, or any group buff etc. In the same way, lots of class, especially pure DPS, didn't have a single heal. Now almost every class has the same set of interrupt/cc/heal/group buff.
Mana and health regenerate way slower, so you NEEDED to stop and eat/drink every few fights. Food and drink actually mater, and mana for DPS caster mattered too. When's the last time you bought normal food in game?
Spell levels (Holy Light 1, Holy Light 2 etc.) existed and were useful to manage your mana.
Each classes has unique quests to unlock specific stuff: mounts for warlocks and paladins, postures for warriors, druid's forms, poisons and Certificate of Thievery for rogues etc.
Every classes had an extra equipment slot where you put your libram, sigil, throw, totem, idol, wand etc.
Original talent tree allowed hybrid class to freely mix healing, tanking and dps abilities (even if it wasn't often imba!).
According to your race or spec, different weapons meant different abilities: maces used to stun, axes had extra crit chance, swords were faster or had a chance to double strike...
World & quests:
Basic campfire required simple wood and a flint.
Reagents (candle, feather, stone...) were needed to cast lots of utility spells. Some could be simply bought but others needed farming all around the world.
Auction Houses were local. At start, only Ironforge (for Alliance) and Oggrimar (for Horde) had one. Also goblin's AH were neutrals so they were used by smugglers to trade rare items between factions.
You need to travel to dungeons and battleground. Now you don't even need to know where they are.
Breathing bar was shorter and quests that required you to go under water didn't auto-give you water breathing buff like now.
There was no instance in the world: If people were in the same place they see and could help each others.
Quests objectives weren't displayed on your map. Quest items didn't sparkle (or had an outline) and quest givers didn't show up on the minimap. Also quest mobs didn't have their names highlighted for you.
Lots of group quests so you have to, well, make group while leveling.
Four Dragons of Nightmare were hidden around Azeroth and required raid-sized groups to be defeated.
Some of the most powerful spells were only learnable from rares Codex. They dropped from dungeons or raids but weren't BoP so you could trade/sale them.
Expansions or some raids used to be announced with huge pre-release events, like The Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, Dark Portal Opens or The Scourge Invasion. This was abandoned after Cataclysm. They were truly massive as the whole realm was participating.
One of the most epic quest-chain had a cooking recipe reward. You needed a group to loot the mats from elite chimeras.
Professions:
Rare recipes required you to travel all over the world, either to find/buy them or to do special quests and even dungeons to unlock them. For example you needed a priest to mind-control a mini-boss to teach you Enchanted Elementium; now it's just a drop.
Some crafting recipes (Sulfuron Hammer, engineer Jeeves/Chopper, some food...) required lots of work and mats. Now it's just a couple, rarely 3, max.
Sound logical, but you actually needed a fishpole to fish, a knife to skin, a hammer for blacksmith etc.
You had to level gathering before getting to the next zone. Now tou can skin/gather in Draenor even if you're level 1.
You need the actual mats to be in your bag. Now you can have them in your bank and craft anything in the wild.
Alchemists and jewelcrafters needed alchemy labs to make some of the best flasks and reagents.
Some professions had sub-specialisations: Blacksmith could specialize in weapon-smith or armor-smith; Alchemist could become transmute, potion or flask masters; Engineers could focus on goblin or gnome recipes. (some of those specialisations still exist but aren't updated anymore)
Skinners could skin either normal leathers or scales (used for mail armor). Now only normal leather exist.
Some creatures (like Onyxia) required special tools to be skinned, which rewarded you with very rare scales to craft unique gear.
Blacksmiths and engineers could craft Skeleton keys and small bombs that you could buy to open lockboxes or doors.
Only enchanters could, well, disenchant items.
There used to be a weekly Kalu’ak Fishing Derby in Northrend.
In Alpha there was a Survival Skills profession used for making campfires and torches. Torches were used for scouting darker areas, such as Duskwood (you couldn't see anything past 20-30 yards in front of you).
PvP:
World PvP ranks) with specific rewards like gear but also repair discount or access to a special World Defense channel.
Alterac Valley lasted for hours with lots of PvE quests included, You could even summon bosses to fight for your side! (You can still technically do it but it's not relevant anymore)
You could loose honor if you killed civilians from opposite faction.
Flow of time:
Gold was scarce, it took a LOT of time to save up 10g. Now you can literally make thousand of gold in a day.
Mounts had different speeds. Now they all go to your max speed. Also summoning mount took twice as long (3 sec vs 1.5 sec now).
Leveling took way longer, so the focus was more about the journey, less about the destination.
Mobs were harder to kill: you could fight a couple of them but pulling a whole group often meant death. Same for rare mobs that requiered a group. Now you can easily pull 5-10 mobs and solo any rare you encounter while leveling.
No instant mail, even to alts. Now there are mailboxes every 20 yards in every cities.
Raids and Dungeons:
When hard raid mode was first introduced (in Ulduar), it was done via in-game action, ie: you had to do trigger specific things during an encounter. Now it's via a click on a menu. (this kind of gameplay removal -World of MenuCraft- is very well explained in this video)
Some raids couldn't be entered directly, you first had to do long and epic questlines to unlock them. Now you can even kill a boss before knowing about his story (Isthar in HFC for example).
Dungeons were real mazes that could take hours to complete. Now it's mostly 3 bosses separated by corridors that took less than 20 minutes to defeat. This picture explains perfectly the situation.
Misc:
You couldn't have Alliance and Horde chars on the same PvP server, which helped faction pride.
Tauren could plainsrun (in beta).
Undead could speak common (in beta).
Keys existed. To open special doors you had first to find the key, ask a rogue to picklock it, have a blacksmith craft a key or use an engineer's charge.
Servers used to be completely separated. This made realm communities and personal behavior extremely important because if you did something like ninja loot, you were labelled as "that guy" and were responsible for your behavior. At the same time, everyone knew who the best players on the server were in PvE and PvP respectively. The server was your world.
Housing was tested in early alpha (as seen in this video): players could buy/build their own house in Stormwind/Goldshire.
Being part of the Brew of the Month Club rewarded you with a monthly sample beer.
Players used to be automatically dismounted when they entered waters... But gnomes were the only ones to be also dismounted in shallow waters, such as Zangarmarsh or Swamp of Sorrows.
@Nonnahswriter , that video that you have posted is good. Well, but compare the story of a wRPG game who focus only on one character like Witcher to a story of any jRPG game. Witcher is a much mature story. Honestly, play as a professional monster slayer is more interesting than play as a average teenager swordsman. I have heard that mmorpgs developed on Korea or Japan tends to have more mature theme, but since they are heavily censored on West, i an not sure.
Honestly, i don't like play with melee characters. I play video games to do things that i can't do in real life. I can practice with a sword in real life, but i can't trow fireballs, stop time, conjure dragons, etc. There are exceptions like M&B, but even M&B,i rather play with mods.
Honestly, i see more RPG elements on visual novels than on jRPGs.
hahahahahha no wait, tell me another. The Withcer games are some of the most adolescent, childish games i have EVER seen.
Playing a JRPG is more like reading a book. (A book where you smash the a button on the cover to turn the page.) It goes from one point to the other with no variation.
If a developer could combine the awesome stories from a JRPG with the consequence-based world of a wRPG, I don’t think people would care that much about character creation. I wouldn’t mind playing [insert blue-haired silent village-type destined-to-be-a-hero here] if I could determine whether the protagonist could destroy the world and join the bad-guys or save the world in canon or join a group of mercenaries that profits from the war.
@mashedtaters ah yes, I must have seen that video a dozen times... it's so good!
Don't get me wrong, unrealistic swords is silly even for Guts, but at least he is not a androgynous guy who in real life will be unable to lift 5kg.... The closest thing to a jRPG that i liked was Dirge of Cerberus on my old PS2. Liked the MC, the weapon customization, the three barrel gun and the story. One genre that i never liked was MMORPG. Until i found Age of Conan. Maybe there are a jRPG for me, but every jRPG that i saw is just not for me...
I like character creation. Play IWD/BG/NWN with a sorcerer, then play again with a solo druid. The game is very different.
Honestly, i play video games to do things that i can't do in real life. I can practice with swords in real life... When the game forces me to play on melee, is a big disadvantage. Dragon's Dogma, i liked play as a Magick Archer, but i almost dropped the game during the "prologue"(you play with a swordsman).
NWN, i have finished the OC and HoTU expansion with Sorcerer, Wizard, Dread Necro(PRC), Druid, Cleric, but never played a melee character. And even on casters, i like how the game is different with different classes.