Bethesda (Makers of such hits as Oblivion and Fallout 3) Says That WRPG's Are More Realistic Than JR

[zaro27]

Does Deus Ex count as a WRPG? If so, then it's kinda plausible. Unlikely, yes, but plausible.

 

[Spencer Taylor]

Yeah... Oblivion could never happen but Fallout could... Final Fantasy could never happen and neither could Okami... As far as we know... Does it really matter though? I use video games to get away from reality so when black ops came out I was very uninterested. Reality sucks and we shouldn't try to replicate that.

 

[bob-2000]

I have only one word to this statement: Duh.

 

[Keepeas]

In general, yes Western RPG's are more realistic...IN GENERAL(just like the article said).
But is that a good thing for WRPG's? maybe not.
I always found WRPG's to be less enticing because of it's level of realism. It's not very realistic...but it's normal enough to be a little boring...

 

[NEMESIS 94]

Okay this can sum up my thoughts on this. I'll use two of my favorites in both genres

WRPGs= Dress up in medieval armor grab a medieval sword and go fight some creature you've read about in mythical culture a la Elder Scrolls

JRPGs= Dress up in over the top clothing grab a giant key and smack around monsters that represent the darkness in humans or the emptiness we feel inside of us or something or another a la Kingdom Hearts.

If you were forced to relate one of those to the real world which would have more similarities?

 

[AlternatePFG]

Still, don't let me get in the way of the "JRPGs are teh evilz" mob.

Logical arguments haven't stopped them before.

 

[Slayer_2]

Fallout is far more plausible than final fantasy. Not to say it's plausible, but there was a time when something SIMILAR could have happened in real life. Fallout 3 just changed it up a bit.

Fallout is actually very plausible even now, even if we're strictly referring to humanity. We have the capacity to turn into savager animals than we already are, not caring about others' fate as long as we survive, doing it by all means necessary, most of us aren't remotely friendly if set loose from the "shackles" of society. A nuclear fallout would bring the best which is coincidentally the worst in our species. As for the weaponry, you can never know...

Well, the way mutations and such happen is very unrealistic, and it defies reality, but compared to pretty much any JRPG, it's far more realistic.

 

[Robert Ewing]

The only way they could possibly be more realistic is that the characters look... well normal. JRPG characters are.... well Japanese anime-esque.

Sure JRPG's seem to be on the more kooky side of things, but they are no more unrealistic than, summoning Mr. Dagon into the imperial city smashing everything to bits, only to be defeated by Sean Bean turning into a massive dragon, that looked completely outmatched anyway. And when he DOES win, he turns to stone and everyone acts as if that massive dragon statue had been there all along.

Tbh, I think they're about the same in the grand scheme of things.

 

[technoted]

In the Elder Scrolls games if you walk into someones house they will question why you're in their home and if you take something the guards will arrest you, in every JRPG I've ever played people are fine with you walking into their house any time of the day or night and taking whatever you want from them.

I do love JRPGs, my favourite game of all time is a JRPG but I'm not letting a biased opinion cloud my views so I'm going to have to agree with Bethesda, their games are significantly more realistic than JRPGs.

 

[Westaway]

Fuck, they didn't make Hunted, Bethesda SOFTWORKS PUBLISHED it, Bethesda GAME STUDIOS had nothing to do with it.

 

[beniki]

Er... but it's true isn't it?

Thinking on the last few JRPGs I played, one was about a fantasy world inside Chopin's head where he himself cut people up with his conducting baton, a Tales of game where music made the continents move, and a one where the main character partied with Donald and Goofy hitting monsters in the face with a giant key.

Contrast that to the last few WRPGs I played, where you start the game in a prison and throughout the game mostly have just a sword and shield to fight the demons, or a space opera where the only tool you had to save the galaxy was a sniper rifle.

I always thought that was kind of the point of JRPGs. They were weird and wonderful, and are generally about optimism. WRPGs have fantastic elements, but also a healthy amount of cold water to push the gritty determination ideal.

 

[Ramanthes]

Have you ever played a JRPG? nothing against them but, well they are the definition of unrealistic.

Persona. That is all I have to say.

And WRPG's aren't any more realistic.

The more you try to defend your argument with Persona,the more you fail in doing so.It is not realistic at all,despite being set a real-life-like setting.Try Parasite Eve.It's plausible (that is,plausible if you have no idea about biology),it's set in f-ing New York,and you play a cop.Ok you play a magical-blonde-japanese-but-in-truth-totally-american cop,but still.And it's still borderline insane compared to Fallout,even though it's much more plausible.

i'm sorry but i really feel like the same should be said about fallout. you think fallout is realistic? seriosuly? i know comic books for generations have told us otherwise but radiation is in fact not this magical force than can do bloody anything. if you get hit by a nuke you die you don't get turned into an imortal zombie. and no it doesn't mutate freaking everything. fallout's "realism" is laughable.
you say persona doesn't make sense? why? because it doesn't follow the rules of a world you allready know? because a group of teenagers can save the world? since when did we get an arbitary age limit on world saveing? and why is it more plausibel that random guy survives a freaking head shot only to the becomeing the deciding force in a fullscale war that can even end in him declareing himself king? what made the courier so special that you don't bat an eye when he becomes the greatest person ever but the second it's a teenager who should be in school he simply should not be able to do shit. heck in persona at least we have something makeing the children in question special. there's a reason they can do the stuff they do. but it's not realistic to you because you need to have the setting explained because it's new rather than simply guess everything because you have seen it before. as i've said earlier it's not more realistic it's more relatable.
final note on this i love both fallout and persona but if anything i'd call persona realistic. at least everyone i meet there act like humans even if a bit weird.

Ofcourse.Radiation not mutating anything like it does in Fallout (it does mutate by the way,just not in the X-men way,more like in the Cancer ward way) but teenagers unleashing aspects of their psyche by shooting gun-like objects to their heads to fight demons? REALISM PERSONIFIED.Jung would be so proud to see his work mutil- errr 'interpreted' like this.

Neither is plausible.Neither Fallout nor Persona.Parasite Eve is more plausible.Again,not realistic.I,personally,find Fallout more realistic because if I found myself in Post Apocalyptia I would grab as many bullets as I could,find decent people,and shoot the others in the face to maximize our chances to survive and rebuild.Which is what my character does in the Fallout games (never finished one with negative Karma yet...propably should).Its a personal opinion.I do like jRPGs (especially the 4th generation ones), but the enjoyment for me stems more from the realization of their pervaying philosophy ('power corrupts' for example,one of the dominant philosophies in Japanese culture post war) rather than identifying with their characters.

Oh and about teenage protagonists and why I don't like them; Vaan and Penelo replacing Basch as the protagonist because of the target audience not being expected to identify with an older protagonist.In other words,an insulting marketing decision.F- that.

 

[coolkirb]

I think that if you went to Japan they would probably talk about how unrealistic WRPG's are. Honestly lets not debate whether or not a girl who can summon fire is more realistic then a guy slaying a dragon.

 

[razer17]

Blue is not a natural hair color, so...

Yep, they're right.

I don't think that the games ever specifically state that the blue hair is natural, though, so clearly that isn't an indicator of realism.

http://thesilentchief.com/2010/08/05/bethesda-western-rpg-more-realistic-than-jrpgs/

Read the article and then read my post.

*Waits*

Oh? Done? Okay.

ARE YOU BLOODY KIDDING ME?!

Have you ever heard of Persona?!


What do you all think?

The social interactions in WRPG's like Fallout or Oblivion are probably more like real life. Secondly, in Persona 4, there is a TV channel that murders people. I think WRPG's are more realistic. Although they still ain't realistic.

And as far as it goes, what he says is that JRPG's are more fantastical. Which is true. You could take out dragons from Skyrim and it's just a stylised version of the middle ages. You couldn't do that with, say, Final Fantasy.

 

[scott91575]

Western RPG's of course include mythical creatures and powers. Yet when you look at the style human characters look like humans you might see in normal life, medieval buildings appear like we expect them to appear, weapons are often very similar to known weapons, etc.

So his statement is correct. He didn't say they are realistic, he said they are more realistic. From my point of view they are. Western RPG's are more of a combination of stuff we consider realistic combined with plenty of fantasy. It builds a connection to the player by including elements that are familiar to the player. On the other hand, JRPG's comes across to me as complete fantasy from the ground up. The entire universe and player models are strange and unfamiliar, and hence there is often a lack of connection to the player.

Just my 2 cents. I am not saying one is better than the other, nor am I saying you have to like WRPG's more. Just a theory that I believe matches up with what he was saying.

 

[AyaReiko]

I agree with Bethesda tbh. For two reasons:

1. Western RPGs have a more realistic Aesthetic - it feels like a 'real' (albeit alternate) world.

2. Western RPGs seem more 'sensible' than JRPGs to me. It's like they have defined their worlds by a set of rules and parameters and everything fits within in them logically. Whereas JRPGs sometimes feel like they were being made up as they were going and that they don't have to make logical sense.

By realistic I don't think Bethesda mean true to real life but in that they feel like those worlds could exist.

I think what really is at play here is "Immersion" not "Realism". Simply put, the West are currently utterly curbstomping the East when it comes to Immersion in games. Which is probably a major factor as to why Yahtzee hates JRPGs so much.

 

[Lt. Vinciti]

Well....They are right...

I dont recall life being a wall of challenges...


Walking Down the Sidewalk
-ENCOUNTER MUSIC-
Street Thug uses Intimidate
Your Turn!

Also...the whole
"A huge number of WRPG's are Tolkienesque skips through fantasy town number 85736826, trying to stop an evil cult, some evil wizard, or just a bunch of assholes trying to be douchebags."

You dont see the Irony in this statement?

Lemme see how many JRPGS go with:

-My town was nuked by the Bad Guys ADVENTURE TIME!
-The badguys kidnapped my loli sister
-The badguys took our magical maguffin (usually a crystal..and some girl w/ zonkin tits is dying because her life is connected to said crystal. SIDE NOTE: WRPGs have this..except its usually threated as a hostage device or used for their purpose only)

WRPGs also tend to have a better...I dont know combat other then line dancing and toolbar management...

Thats right we pick up that sword and can run it thru you!
Your loli sister casters FIREOFHELLEVERYONEFALLDOWN and everyone just takes 999999 damage and falls over blinking...

Then we all dance

 

[ChupathingyX]

The only thing I can think of for the soil and water is that rain has managed to get airborne radiation and transferred it into the ground. From there, the water flowing through the soil has transferred that radiation from one spot and dumped it in a new area, concentrating it even more if it already had radiation in it.

That could've happened but the problem is that by Fallout 2 most radiation had already started to go away, so you would assume that by the time Fallout 3 takes place which is 200 years after the bombs fell then a lot of radiation would be gone. However, in Fallout 3 there is radiation everywhere and it can still be found in large quantities even in all of the water sources.

At least in New Vegas the majority of the water sources have now cleared and radiation has now concentrated into buildings such as vaults and waste dumps.