These forums have some serious issues with JRPGs. And it's time to address them.

[Mr.Squishy]

Well I do agree that blind hatred of JRPGs, or anything for that matter, needs to stop.
I'm not a JRPG fan myself, but if people like 'em then who cares?

I will touch on two points you made, though, based on my own experience:

3. Story's lame:

You're kidding, right? JRPGs are known for their sweeping stories. You just don't have any choice over it.

I have never seen a good story in a JRPG.
Sorry, maybe I've played the wrong ones, but choice has nothing to do with it. It's just cliche after cliche and always with the bad dialog. The JRPG I liked the most in terms of gameplay, Eternal Sonata, had the worst story. It was so pretentious, and so flat out awful that I skipped every cutscene after watching the first few, hoping it would turn out better.
It didn't.

4. Not really Role-Playing if you can't make choices

I thought that RPGs were about leveling up, not moral choices.

Example: When they say a game has "RPG elements", that doesn't mean moral choices have been added to the game. That means they've added a leveling system of some sort. Like the stat bars in GTA: San Andreas.

RPGs are about choices, not always moral choices.
Take 'moral' out of the equation. That has nothing to do with it. It's about choices, or, at the least, the illusion of choice. Give me multiple ways to play my role! Because that's what you're doing: Playing a role. Playing a role with no way to choose how to play it is just like any game. Then Half-life is an RPG because I'm playing the role of Gordon Freeman.

But once you factor in the choices, from how you level up, to how you respond to people, to which quests you take, to what weapons you wield! An RPG is putting a player within a role and letting them play it as they wish. JRPGs, in my experience, don't really do that. Your attributes all go up automatically, you are limited in what class of weapon you can use (Usually), and you can never choose dialog.

It's a Rail-RPG, really.
At least, in my experience it is.

Frankly, 'Tea, most of these criticisms can be levelled at most RPG's, role plays and indeed video games as a whole. Cliché's turn up in everything that has even a modicum of a story (Call of Duty 4 - Evil Russians, terrorists, gung-ho, sociopathic Americans and cunning, morally questionable Brits). Hell, even Baldur's Gate has the most cliché storyline of all - and that's a Western RPG classic.

Spoiler

Your adopted parent is killed by your psychotic half-brother, who wants to kill you so he can become...okay, fair enough, the Lord of Death, but so far, so Star Wars.

Knights of the Old Republic....again... cliché! Storyline is still cliché - you play 'The Mysterious Stranger[sup]TM[/sup]' yet again, with an identitkit set of abilities and appearance. You don't play a role - you play yourself, with blasters and vibroblades.

Fallout? You have to save your society....and the world has burned to the ground in the fires of nucleonic Armageddon?

Fact of the matter is that, well, all stories are, to some degree or another, cliché. Sure, it may be nauseating, absurd, pretentious cliché, but your conception that the all JRPG's will share this flaw, or indeed that this will make them all bad, is not accurate.

[sub] This post was made by a person who's last JRPG was Final Fantasy XII, which made him swear to never buy another. That being said, he's looking at Dragon Age: Origins, so don't take his swearing too seriously...[/sub]

Concerning what you said about Baldur's Gate being like Star Wars - Isn't it ironic that many have called Star Wars Lord of The rings in space? Of course, differences are to be seen, but it's an unlikely farmer boy hero who inherits a magic glowing sword and goes off to defeat an evil overlord with a wide array of support characters including the rugged badass (aragorn/han solo), the hairy beast (gimli, chewbacca ), the old mentor-type figure with magic-ass powers up the wazoo and a sword (gandalf, Obi-wan), the beautiful kind-of-badass chick (galadriel, leia). Keep in mind this comes from someone who's only seen episode 1 and 6 of SW, and read about until 2 towers in LOTR.
Also, the characters in Baldur's Gate are WAY different, and come on, did Darth Vader try to

Spoiler

become the god of murder by murdering all his siblings and causing death, despair, suspicion and ultimately war and betrayal that would lead to him gaining power exponentially?

 

[Mozza444]

One of my favourite games of all time is Final fantasy tactics advance.. great story and i love the customisation, classes and yes i love the TURN BASED COMBAT :O

 

[Fappy]

One of my favourite games of all time is Final fantasy tactics advance.. great story and i love the customisation, classes and yes i love the TURN BASED COMBAT :O

Oh Noez! TURN BASED COMBAT!?

 

[ostro-whiskey]

JRPG's suck ass. They (the Japs) should stick to horror and tactical espionage action games.

You call that opinon or fact?

Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

 

[Ultress]

I could make an impassioned speech like some are but it's like arguing with a brick wall.

So I'll say this, I enjoy turn based combat and tolerate random encounters. I like the stories and even if the story is ok the characters usually make up for it( Vesperia I'm looking at you).

 

[More Fun To Compute]

It is in fact possible to argue that the phrase "Role-playing game" is a superordinate term for all games where you have characters, in the same way that science fiction is a superordinate term for anything with a "fantasy" setting.

The problem, or the strength, of the term RPG is that it is almost possible to argue that it means anything and at any one moment there are usually a bunch of people who will argue to their dying breath that it can only mean exactly what they want it to mean. Originally it was coined to describe coop games with character classes, or roles, meaning that Team Fortress and Guild Wars fit the original description better than most things that people would think of, including most modern table top RPGs.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You have yet to actually explain what makes the argument that Half Life can be defined as a role playing game false.

Ok, in simple terms from the OED
A roleplaying game is ``a game in which players take on the roles of imaginary characters, usually in a setting created by a referee, and thereby vicariously experience the imagined adventures of these characters.''
Now, while most of the JRPG elements are there, it fails on the two accounts bolded.

vicarious can be defined as
1. performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another: vicarious punishment.
2. taking the place of another person or thing; acting or serving as a substitute.
3. felt or enjoyed through imagined participation in the experience of others: a vicarious thrill.
4. Physiology. noting or pertaining to a situation in which one organ performs part of the functions normally performed by another.

Now while JRPGs and WRPGs have these levels of performance, there is often no impedance from the character except what the player is giving them. You can RP with a JRPG, but it's not an integral part of the experience.

Imagined also fails because all of the scenes are pre-scripted. As well as that, as Yahtzee has said, the only moral choices you have are between Saint and Baby-Eater. So the adventures aren't imagined, only given the illusion of having been so.

If you wanted to, could you save Aeris in FF7 and marry her? No? Well, it's not an RPG. It may be a JCRPG (Gestalt: Japanese Computer Rail Playing Game) and you may RP with it, but ultimately you're on a railroaded script to take down a planet killer with random encounters every five steps.

And I quite like that, but it's NOT an RPG.

Do you not assume the role of Gordon Freeman?

No, you control only his actions and can't alter the game world directly.

Is he not a character?

Nope, at best he's a storytelling device.

Furthermore saying that one term is a superordinate term isn't the same as saying they are synonymous though they are indeed very close. The word "class" is a superordinate term for "genre" but they do not have exactly the same definition. It is of course possible and perhaps advisable to define genre as a class of art. The reason being that genre is a subordinate of class.

However, if you have one term that is defined as a superordinate term, due to its gestalt nature, does not mean that its constituent parts can use the same parameters as the original clause.

 

[The Madman]

I personally find it halarious when a company complains that Japanese roleplaying games never embrace innovation while they steal one of the best mechanics from a recent JRPG hit (the Gambit system), change the name (Tactics), and stick it in their own game.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU BIOWARE

There was an element like that in place all the way back in the original Baldur's Gate with the script system, a game made by Bioware and released twelve years ago. It's hardly something they 'copied', they and many other western rpg have had varying similar features. If anything it would be more appropriate to point out this is a case of a Japanese developer taking a look at western games and implementing good ideas, something more developers should be doing no matter where they're from or what type of game they're making.

And wRPGs have an open story now?

You know, I must have missed the part where I could change the outcome of Oblivion... it seemed to me that no matter how many guilds I went through, or how many arena battles I won, or how many children I saved from zombies... that not a damn thing changed the predestined quest of entering Oblivion a million times, closing portals, and eventually being -allowed to sit and watch- some supporting character finish the big bad for me.

Please, do not confuse 'open story' with 'allowed to piss away hours of gametime doing crap that doesn't actually do anything other than be crap you can do on the side.'

Oblivion is a poor example. That would be the equivalent of me judging every jrpg in the past and future by the example of, say, Demon's Soul since you mention it in another part of your post. It's an RPG, it's from Japan, therefor it *must* be a prime example of what every other jrpg is like then, right?

If you want an example of the 'open story' many people enjoy as an element of wrpg, look at games such as Fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Vampire: Bloodlines, Planescape: Torment or The Witcher. In each game there's a pre-determined story, one of the best stories ever told by a game in Planescape: Torments case, however the way in which you travel through that story is ultimately up to the player as are many of the elements of just how that story will eventually play out. It helps the player grow more interested in the story when they can feel they're having at least some effect on how things are playing out, it also can make the game's story seem much more personal in that you're not simply watching some character walk a pre-determined path but your own little representation dealing with the consequences of your own actions.

There's still a pre-determined story and villains. Every player 'will' ultimately face the same grand villains and the like. But how everything plays out can be entirely different from one player to the next; and in the case of games like Vampire: Bloodlines, a player who played through in one manner will gain insights into the story another player playing in another manner will not, making even the story itself seem unique to each player while not compromising the integrity of the overall story.

That is part of the reasons I love a good 'western' rpg so much. Although the entire 'western' thing is a bit of a misnomer since many of my favorites have been European while others North American. Lumping the rest of the world into one category against simply the small Island of Japan is an odd thing to do.

 

[DP155ToneZone]

There's still a pre-determined story and villains. Every player 'will' ultimately face the same grand villains and the like. But how everything plays out can be entirely different from one player to the next; and in the case of games like Vampire: Bloodlines, a player who played through in one manner will gain insights into the story another player playing in another manner will not, making even the story itself seem unique to each player while not compromising the integrity of the overall story.

A thousand times this. JRPGs tend to lean on the preachy side of things. The best lessons are taught through experience, not telling the student to think.

In Vampire: Bloodlines you learnt much about an organisation called the Camarilla. Depending on what you chose to do in the game, and who you spoke to, you either learned of the good things of the organisation or the bad things.

At the end of that game i really felt that an Anarchist government can suit the Damned, but my mate who played it with a different character decided that without order, everything crumbles.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

However, I will disagree with your implication in your original post that a turn-based system is flawed (at least, that's what I inferred. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). I mean, Golden Sun was turn based, and it's battle system worked well. Especially considering some of the late-game optional bosses in The Lost Age would rape you without a strategy.

You misunderstood, I don't believe that its flawed in the least, in fact, I prefer it. But this site and indeed, even some people in this topic seems to believe that ALL jrpgs are turn-based.

 

[DracoSuave]

I personally find it halarious when a company complains that Japanese roleplaying games never embrace innovation while they steal one of the best mechanics from a recent JRPG hit (the Gambit system), change the name (Tactics), and stick it in their own game.

I'M LOOKING AT YOU BIOWARE

There was an element like that in place all the way back in the original Baldur's Gate with the script system, a game made by Bioware and released twelve years ago. It's hardly something they 'copied', they and many other western rpg have had varying similar features. If anything it would be more appropriate to point out this is a case of a Japanese developer taking a look at western games and implementing good ideas, something more developers should be doing no matter where they're from or what type of game they're making.

I was not aware that many rpgs have had completely customizable AIs. I thought it was more of a choice of general behavior, to some degree.

This is news to me.

Oblivion is a poor example. That would be the equivalent of me judging every jrpg in the past and future by the example of, say, Demon's Soul since you mention it in another part of your post. It's an RPG, it's from Japan, therefor it *must* be a prime example of what every other jrpg is like then, right?

And my point stands... saying that jRPs are worse than western ones because of certain flaws is blatantly ignoring the western ones that have those exact same flaws.

If you want an example of the 'open story' many people enjoy as an element of wrpg, look at games such as Fallout 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Vampire: Bloodlines, Planescape: Torment or The Witcher.

There's examples of Japanese-made games that also have that wideopen, do what you want and it'll come out okay somehow feel. The thing is, those aren't the ones that get localized over here, because a lot of gamers actually want more structure to their games.

In each game there's a pre-determined story, one of the best stories ever told by a game in Planescape: Torments case, however the way in which you travel through that story is ultimately up to the player as are many of the elements of just how that story will eventually play out. It helps the player grow more interested in the story when they can feel they're having at least some effect on how things are playing out, it also can make the game's story seem much more personal in that you're not simply watching some character walk a pre-determined path but your own little representation dealing with the consequences of your own actions.

I'm not going to debate the masterpiece that is Planescape. But Planescape's mastery and awesomeness comes not from being the epitome of western rpgs, but rather because it defied the standard western rpg tropes, and went on to be something absolutely unique and stand alone.

There isn't a game like it, it's not an example of your 'typical western rpg.'

It's the same reason why Persona 3 and 4 got such rave reviews.... turn based, encounter based, grind fests.... but you had SO MUCH choice in how you went about readying yourself for those dungeon crawls that it was unique and endearing.

It's undeniably jRPG, but it's a cut above the rest in so many ways... and it's utterly surprising it ever got released in North America.

There's still a pre-determined story and villains. Every player 'will' ultimately face the same grand villains and the like. But how everything plays out can be entirely different from one player to the next; and in the case of games like Vampire: Bloodlines, a player who played through in one manner will gain insights into the story another player playing in another manner will not, making even the story itself seem unique to each player while not compromising the integrity of the overall story.

Granted, one could claim Vampire: Bloodlines is a first person shooter/brawler with dialog trees...

...but that'd be shortchanging its awesomeness.

Compare it, however, to the more bland Vampire: Redemption which was a diablo clone that didn't even try to disguise itself... and was terrible for trying.

-That- is a better example of western rpgs at their most mediocre.

That is part of the reasons I love a good 'western' rpg so much. Although the entire 'western' thing is a bit of a misnomer since many of my favorites have been European while others North American. Lumping the rest of the world into one category against simply the small Island of Japan is an odd thing to do.

This I agree with. The problem I have with the 'wRPG' vs 'jRPG' mentality, is that the best western-designed games, the ones that broke the mold by being better than the standard mediocrity, is often compared to those jRPGs that -did not- break the mold, and are not considered better than the standard mediocrity.

It's not a fair comparison, at all.

Let's face it, for every Beyond the Beyond (TERRIBLE) there was a Suikoden (AWESOME).


But, and it's time to face facts... no national holiday has ever been declared for a western RPG... and no western RPG has ever been used to sell a gaming platform before Final Fantasy 7.
Games like KOTOR, Dragon Age, and what have you might not have made the mainstream gaming consciousness if Sony didn't give a gamble on Squaresoft's fare. Planescape: Torment was art, but it was not accessible... and using 'it's accessible' as a criticism is as much of a failure in understanding what gaming is supposed to be as is claiming 'it's pretty' is a criticism of certain pieces of art.

 

[shadow skill]

You have yet to actually explain what makes the argument that Half Life can be defined as a role playing game false.

Ok, in simple terms from the OED
A roleplaying game is ``a game in which players take on the roles of imaginary characters, usually in a setting created by a referee, and thereby vicariously experience the imagined adventures of these characters.''
Now, while most of the JRPG elements are there, it fails on the two accounts bolded.

vicarious can be defined as
1. performed, exercised, received, or suffered in place of another: vicarious punishment.
2. taking the place of another person or thing; acting or serving as a substitute.
3. felt or enjoyed through imagined participation in the experience of others: a vicarious thrill.
4. Physiology. noting or pertaining to a situation in which one organ performs part of the functions normally performed by another.

Now while JRPGs and WRPGs have these levels of performance, there is often no impedance from the character except what the player is giving them. You can RP with a JRPG, but it's not an integral part of the experience.

Imagined also fails because all of the scenes are pre-scripted. As well as that, as Yahtzee has said, the only moral choices you have are between Saint and Baby-Eater. So the adventures aren't imagined, only given the illusion of having been so.

If you wanted to, could you save Aeris in FF7 and marry her? No? Well, it's not an RPG. It may be a JCRPG (Gestalt: Japanese Computer Rail Playing Game) and you may RP with it, but ultimately you're on a railroaded script to take down a planet killer with random encounters every five steps.

And I quite like that, but it's NOT an RPG.

Do you not assume the role of Gordon Freeman?

No, you control only his actions and can't alter the game world directly.

Is he not a character?

Nope, at best he's a storytelling device.

Furthermore saying that one term is a superordinate term isn't the same as saying they are synonymous though they are indeed very close. The word "class" is a superordinate term for "genre" but they do not have exactly the same definition. It is of course possible and perhaps advisable to define genre as a class of art. The reason being that genre is a subordinate of class.

However, if you have one term that is defined as a superordinate term, due to its gestalt nature, does not mean that its constituent parts can use the same parameters as the original clause.

I love how you claim that the dictionary agrees with you that JRPGs are not RPGs, until I call you on it and point out that the dictionary does no such thing; at which point you retreat back into the world of jargon to continue your flawed argument. Subordinate terms always are more specific than the superordinate term that they draw from. They don't use the same exact parameters but they still posses the important parts of the superordinate term's definition. If they used the same parameters they would be synonymous, if they had nothing in common they would be entirely separate terms.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

]I love how you claim that the dictionary agrees with you that JRPGs are not RPGs, until I call you on it and point out that the dictionary does no such thing; at which point you retreat back into the world of jargon to continue your flawed argument. Subordinate terms always are more specific than the superordinate term that they draw from. They don't use the same exact parameters but they still posses the important parts of the superordinate term's definition. If they used the same parameters they would be synonymous, if they had nothing in common they would be entirely separate terms.

Your own definition of a subordinate term is the same as the superordinate term it is derived from, and I'm only using the same "jargon" as you. It's just the "jargon" I'm using is commonly known as English. And as yet, you haven't called me on the dictionary definition, so I really fail to see where that idea came from.

If you can't discuss a point without examples or proofs; and resort to insults, then I consider this matter a win for definitions.

 

[Burningsok]

JRPG's are fine, its just that they have become so similar in the past few years that it has lost its status as being a good game genre, the fighting I have no problem with, the look of it all has barely changed with no creativity.

Over all I'd take the free flow kind of combat rather then turn based, in my opinion.

 

[rokkolpo]

i like jrpg's just as much as many other games.

kingdom hearts is a jrpg and i love that game more then anything else.

 

[Julianking93]

I don't hate JRPGs.

I usually love the story and characters, but anything with turn based combat makes me completely uninterested.

The only game to ever have turn based combat that I liked was Final Fantasy X

 

[shadow skill]

]I love how you claim that the dictionary agrees with you that JRPGs are not RPGs, until I call you on it and point out that the dictionary does no such thing; at which point you retreat back into the world of jargon to continue your flawed argument. Subordinate terms always are more specific than the superordinate term that they draw from. They don't use the same exact parameters but they still posses the important parts of the superordinate term's definition. If they used the same parameters they would be synonymous, if they had nothing in common they would be entirely separate terms.

Your own definition of a subordinate term is the same as the superordinate term it is derived from, and I'm only using the same "jargon" as you. It's just the "jargon" I'm using is commonly known as English. And as yet, you haven't called me on the dictionary definition, so I really fail to see where that idea came from.

If you can't discuss a point without examples or proofs; and resort to insults, then I consider this matter a win for definitions.

So I take it you don't even know what the phrase role-play even means yet you claim that the dictionary supports your claim that JRPGs are not RPGs. Yet when you actually read what you posted as agreeing with your position it becomes clear that Role-playing is a key element present in almost all videogames. This is why I have stated that it is possible to say that a game like Half Life is in fact a role-playing game. When we refer to an RPG as one that has a game master, etc, etc we are in fact using jargon rather than the dictionary definition of the term "role-play." This is why i have said previously that you have retreated into using jargon to continue your flawed argument.

I have stated that a subordinate term is a more specific form of a superordinate term. This is consistent with both the first and fourth definition of the term superordinate.:

1. of higher degree in condition or rank

4. Linguistics. a term that denotes a general class under which a set of subcategories is subsumed: “Child” is the superordinate of “girl” and “boy.”

Noticed how definition four clearly moves from the general (superordinate) to the more specific? (subordinate) Notice how they do not in fact have the exact same definition but instead contain an element of the superordinate term?

Role-playing refers to the changing of one's behavior to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the Oxford English Dictionary defines roleplaying as "the changing of one's behavior to fulfill a social role",[1] the term is used more loosely in three senses:

* To refer to the playing of roles generally such as in a theater, or educational setting;
* To refer to a wide range of games including computer role-playing games, play-by-mail games and more;
* To refer specifically to role-playing games.[2]

This here actually says that role-playing occurs when you change your behavior to adopt a given role. This exactly what you do when you play a videogame that has characters in it like Assassin's Creed for example. In fact Desmond is role-playing as his ancestors through the Animus so you are role-playing by definition twice over!

It is interesting to note however that the Wikipedia entry is probably incorrect in it's assertion that the term is being used loosely when it is being applied to acting and the like. Because according to three or four other dictionaries it fits the term exactly as opposed to loosely.

 

[TheNumber1Zero]

On the contrary, RPGs are supposed to be about role playing. Calling a level up system an ''RPG element'' is ignorance. Common ignorance, but ignorance none the less.

"Several varieties of RPG exist in electronic media, including text-based MUDs and their graphics-based successors, massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The term is also used to describe role-playing video games using character progression mechanics first developed in pen-and-paper RPGs, though these games do not involve role-playing in the term's original sense."

Taken from Wikipedia article "Role Playing game". Yes, that statement is sourced. Quadruple.

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