Akratus said:
All of those are fantasy, excepting Persona.
I don't really see how this is relevant, given those most WRPGs are fantasy. It's true that WRPGs are science fiction more often than JRPGs are, but that's got more to do with the coat of paint than the actual content of most games. Few games of any origin are successful at being traditional science fiction -- the kind that comments on the capacity for technology to change the social landscape of our lives. For most intents and purposes, science fiction and fantasy both hold the same function in games; they provide abstractions that allow game mechanics to make sense.
In any case, Persona is also fantasy. It's just fantasy in the modern world, rather than psuedo-medieval.
Akratus said:
The only game with it's own style, really, on that list, is Demon's/Dark Souls.
Patently false, whatever definition of "style" you want to use. I don't know if you're referring to art style, writing style, mechanical style or whatever, but each of those games are different in all of those different ways. Dragon Quest doesn't resemble Monster Hunter at all, be it in mechanics, writing, art, sound direction or whatever you'd like to point out. Nor does Persona resemble Fire Emblem in those ways. Each of those series has a very different way of handling the concepts it includes, which becomes obvious when you play them.
Akratus said:
And none of them have good writing or art design. Which the greats among WRPG's do.
You're moving into an area of heavier subjectivity here, but we'd have to define the "greats" among WRPGs first, in any case. For me, the prime example is The Witcher series, which had good art direction for the first game and absolutely fantastic art direction for the second. Otherwise, are you talking about The Elder Scrolls, which has changed its art direction drastically between Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim? Are we talking about Fallout, the writing within which took a deep dive from Fallout 3 onwards? Mass Effect? Dragon Age?
You're not being at all specific and you're leaning on generalisations rather than anything that illustrates your points for me. It's easy to claim that WRPGs are more diverse, have their own styles, have better art design and have better writing, but those are just opinions without reasonable, explained backing. You're welcome to those opinions, of course, but you're not going to sway anyone if you don't illustrate the reasoning behind them, especially if your audience gets the impression that you haven't played any significant amount of JRPGs.
Insofar as my gaming experience goes, RPGs have been one of the major backbones of my play time ever since I discovered them -- Western and Japanese alike. I absolutely value both and couldn't tell you which kind I like better, because I honestly don't know. But what I do know is that JRPGs often get slighted by people who haven't actually played them, or haven't played JRPGs of different kinds. And I'm getting the distinct impression that you're one of those people, because I specifically chose the games I listed because they're all popular, well-known and different.
If JRPGs have a consistent advantage of WRPGs, though, I'd say that it's that they're usually more mechanically sophisticated than WRPGs, with a more diverse array of gameplay systems within the genre. The WRPG industry is more heavily dominated by a smaller selection of "greats" that don't necessarily innovate on the material that they've put out beforehand. For instance, BioWare's Dragon Age is like a parred-down version of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, whereas Mass Effect's combat mechanics were competent but otherwise standard for third-person shooters. Skyrim's major problem is that it, by default, contains very little depth of gameplay without mods. The recent Fallout games are better in that respect, but not necessarily by that much. While smaller games like Mount & Blade buck the trend heavily, they really are a whole lot smaller than the AAA material that dominates WRPG perception by that small handful of large studios.
Juxtaposing that is the greater diversity of JRPG gameplay systems, as I mentioned above. Fire Emblem isn't a traditional JRPG (apart from the fact that it's long-running in its own right), because it's a tile-based tactics game where the outcomes of fights are influenced by RPG mechanics. Monster Hunter and Dark Souls hinge on the master of timing and relative positioning, plus recognition of enemy telegraphs. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy are about how efficient you can make your turns, whereas the 'Tales Of' series uses real-time, side-on, fighting-game style combat with a traditional JRPG menu system that can be accessed to control your allied characters, which pauses the game. Apart from the notable differences in aesthetic and writing, each of these series has a distinct kind of mechanical gameplay.
As a gamer who loves RPGs of all kinds, but especially loves experiencing new systems and new ways to play, there's no question -- JRPGs more often provide me with the more novel gameplay experience and the need to adapt my understanding in order to succeed. And it doesn't seem that the JRPG's creative spark has really gone anywhere, with the major flaw of the genre being that its writing quality hasn't progressed in relation to its mechanical creativity. With that said, though, WRPGs often have atrocious writing in their own right -- one of the most celebrated WRPGs today is still Skyrim, which writes the book on forgettable dialogue and prose. BioWare games are better and The Witcher games are even better still, but we're not talking genius writing on either end of the geographical spectrum. And for what it's worth, JRPGs tend to have a greater focus on the dynamic of a group of consistent characters. They may not be comprised of literary genius, but plenty of WRPGs don't even try, which is to me a constant source of disappointment.
Like I said, I love RPGs on both sides of the spectrum. Both have their ups and downs. But what you posted communicates nothing to me except that you're not experienced with JRPGs and have almost certainly gained your information second-hand, or are biased for whatever reason in favour of one cultural group of games. The best RPGs, I believe, combine strong elements of both styles. So it stands to reason that The Witcher games and the Souls games have been some of the most celebrated RPGs of this gaming generation -- both borrow heavily from both sides of the Pacific Ocean and are much more powerful for it, which shows us just how foolish picking just one or the other is.
Desert Punk said:
Monster Hunter and Demon/Dark Souls are Action-Adventure games, not JRPGs
Oh please.
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