Honest Question. WRPGs and JRPGs.

[Lahey]

Check out the "Brave New World".

Good old ID. Used to post there once upon a time. Unfortunately the site owner slowly drifted away after getting a job at Blizzard, and the lack of maintenance exasperated already tenuous community engagement. F for respects. FFT fans should definitely check out the 1.3 mod.

 

[Alex]

JRPGs also tend to have a few problems even when we ignore anything about their story and art. In particular:

"Abilities" (spells, special skills or whatever the game has) tend to be less varied and interesting than the ones found in CRPGs. Final Fantasy 7, for instance, has a whole lot of spells you can use, but their diversity pales if you compare it with, for instance, Baldur's Gate 2. Of course, a whole lot of other wester games would also pale in such comparison, but a whole lot of japanese games would pale in ability variety if compared to Final Fantasy 7.

Japanese games tend to have "stupid" systems, that frequently make no sense whatsoever. Things like having non magic classes use abilities that are indistinguishable from magic, having death in combat not mean jack squat outside of it or having an ability growth system where you have to go through some kind of minigame to improve your characters. For instance the way Final Fantasy 9 deals with ability learning.

Japanese games also tend to have combat systems that are either very simple, or that are weird and seem "gamey". Sometimes both (like Valkyrie Profile).

There are a few exceptions to these, but even then, they usually suffer from other problems. Front Mission 3, for instance, is free of any of these (having your skills trigger on a probability is a bit abstract, but it isn't very unsettling and can make sense in a lot of cases (we can suppose you needed an opening from the enemy mech to use the skill). But while the game has several qualities, the way combat is set up is fixed. The game throws pre-defined map after pre-defined map at you. The game gives you a lot of freedom in building your mech and developing your pilots, but your ability to influence the scenarios is limited to some out of combat interactions that may cause a map to play different, but these are very limited.

 

[Beastro]

It gets old having to fight Chaos, Death, God in the end over and over.

That is a part of a wider issue with JRPGs reusing things again and again in different ways. If that was limited to Final Fantasy as their unique quirk it would be ok, but it's found with too much frequency across the entire sub-genre.

There's a lot of other things like that that they keep doing that I got tired of after FFIX in 1999, and that doesn't even touch upon the other silliness they've added onto their plate since then.

Then there's their Japanese take on things like history, politics, war, etc that do not click with me when you keep being battered with them over and over. Also that odd, Japanese way of juvenile melodramatic dialogue that fit well with the simple, naive, kiddie adventurous spirit of 16 bit JRPGs, but was becoming increasingly farcical as consoles moved beyond that and they started to try to be more and more mature (Late 90s 32 bit ones being in the teenager stage of that analogy I find).

If I'm going to deal with BS like that I'd rather deal with Western BS and find the bits of diamond in the rough while doing so than deal with that again, bar replaying older JRPGs I still have a fondness for once every 10 years or so.

If some JRPGS could really break with that and deliver something less "Japanesey" they might draw in more who don't get Japanese culture. I think that is why Xenogears appeals to me so much given that it's heart is religiously and philosophically Western while all that's followed that's Xeno- is just doing it over again in a different way, Xenosaga dialing up the "Japaneseness" up to obnoxious levels, mainly thanks to what it did with its characters.

 

[Chaotic_Heretic]

As I see it Japan has two schools of design.

One is overcliched, too bright, in your face animu kawai desu desu stuff. This includes artstyle, story and "personality" of the pc/companions. Most jrpgs fall in this category and hence the dislike for the genre. This "style" is now synonymous with jrpgs.

Another is the subtle and medival european/gothic inspired story telling/aesthetics. Example would include Nocturne, Demon Souls and Elminage. Not saying all jrpgs of this style are incline, but most incline stuff from japan tends to be this as they aren't made for preteen schoolboys.

A while back I was playing Elminage Original on my phone during work and this dudebro type sees it and says: Cool game bro, looks interesting. I replied that its Elminage Original an game made in japan. (Not going into whats an rpg with the plebs) He was like don't treat me like i am dumb; Everybody knows japanese games are like ecchi animu stuff. This is clearly a game made in Europe. When I asked why this couldn't be an american game. His reply was that there isn't enough explosions and shootings happening.

 

[Rahdulan]

As I see it Japan has two schools of design.

One is overcliched, too bright, in your face animu kawai desu desu stuff. This includes artstyle, story and "personality" of the pc/companions. Most jrpgs fall in this category and hence the dislike for the genre. This "style" is now synonymous with jrpgs.

Another is the subtle and medival european/gothic inspired story telling/aesthetics. Example would include Nocturne, Demon Souls and Elminage. Not saying all jrpgs of this style are incline, but most incline stuff from japan tends to be this as they aren't made for preteen schoolboys.

I think it's more a case of animu games and then everything else which makes for a minority of JRPGs made these days. Root of this problem is a really incestuous relationship going on between Japanese video games industry and manga/anime industry. Something that isn't really new because you always had these "anime JRPGs" with art styles that matched whatever was currently popular in the manga/anime field, but as more not-as-big-budget and niche JRPGs get made they clearly aim to capitalize on that audience by default.

I mean, someone who follows the genre and is used to looks can tell the difference, but this blends easily together for someone who's not into JRPGs.

 

[Viata]

Persona 3/4 were sort of like Neverwinter Nights: Mask of the Betrayer, the end of an era.

nah, persona 3/4 are decent, but overrated dating simulator. SMT: Strange Journey was the MoTB of Atlus

Fixed.

 

[Beastro]

As I see it Japan has two schools of design.

One is overcliched, too bright, in your face animu kawai desu desu stuff. This includes artstyle, story and "personality" of the pc/companions. Most jrpgs fall in this category and hence the dislike for the genre. This "style" is now synonymous with jrpgs.

Another is the subtle and medival european/gothic inspired story telling/aesthetics. Example would include Nocturne, Demon Souls and Elminage. Not saying all jrpgs of this style are incline, but most incline stuff from japan tends to be this as they aren't made for preteen schoolboys.

A while back I was playing Elminage Original on my phone during work and this dudebro type sees it and says: Cool game bro, looks interesting. I replied that its Elminage Original an game made in japan. (Not going into whats an rpg with the plebs) He was like don't treat me like i am dumb; Everybody knows japanese games are like ecchi animu stuff. This is clearly a game made in Europe. When I asked why this couldn't be an american game. His reply was that there isn't enough explosions and shootings happening.

I guess he doesn't know JRPGs well enough. Taking a look at screenshots of that game, I can see the Japanese in it from the simple style of how the enemies are placed on the screen, not to mention the certain style they're drawn in that evokes old 16 bit games.

 

[Athelas]

Seems like I read a lot of complaints about how there aren't enough turn-based western RPGs, they're not tactical enough, they're lite crap, blah blah blah.

I got to thinking. Why aren't these complainers playing JRPGs? Our Eastern friends have been refining turn-based tactics for decades without ever stopping.

They have? I like a number of Japanese RPG's, but they haven't particularly been refining anything. My understanding is that tabletop games never caught on in Japan, so Japanese RPG development is extremely insular, with their only frame of reference for RPG's apparently being the first few Wizardry games that were imported in the early 80's and Korean MMO's. So while Japanese RPG's have been massively popular for decades, unlike their western peers, due to that insurality they mostly seem to have stuck with the very basic 'arena' approach to combat with no movement and added a bunch of gimmicks to turn-based combat to make it more action-y, such as quicktime events that add extra damage when you press some buttons right as a character performs an attack animation, or the whole active time battle system that makes time pass and lets the enemy attack even if it's your turn. Not my idea of refining turn-based combat.

Some of the quirks of Japanese RPG's are also questionable, like how they don't really have to-hit-rolls for damaging attacks (they almost never miss), but they not only kept to-hit-rolls for status-inflicting moves, but made them very unfavourable. This means status effects are often useless compared to damaging attacks. Because damaging attacks never miss, both the amount of HP and damage needs to be strongly inflated.

Obviously there are exceptions such as Fire Emblem, but that series is still using the same gameplay formula from decades ago with minor tweaks. It's a good formula, but that's not exactly refinement, is it?

 

[anvi]

I like FFT and Tactics Ogre. But mostly I hate JRPGs because of the stupid characters, dialogue, and dumb noob consoletard gameplay.

 

[Viata]

They have? I like a number of Japanese RPG's, but they haven't particularly been refining anything. My understanding is that tabletop games never caught on in Japan, so Japanese RPG development is extremely insular, with their only frame of reference for RPG's apparently being the first few Wizardry games that were imported in the early 80's and Korean MMO's.

Korean MMO's as reference? Only for mmorpg, right? I hardly see any similarities between your average Korean MMO and JRPG, besides grinding, but JRPG did that first(between those two, I mean).
Now, Wizardry and Ultima are their frame of reference. Well, the first JRPG started based on these two(Dragon Quest, for example, is Ultima meets Wizardry). Then many JRPG were based on Dragon Quest, FF for example. And then any JRPG released after was based on DQ and FF. So yeah, if you go to the root of all JRPG, it all started on Ultima and Wizardry. That's why it's not wrong to say that JRPG is all about Dungeon Crawler. What kills JRPGs for me sometime is not its anime graphics, it's how some battle mechanics are boring, taking long ass animations for battles(FFIX is my second favorite FF, but god do I hate waiting 3 minutes to start a battle in that game), and some take the fun out of you(Tales series taking control of your party, for example). As for story, the more you play JRPG, the less you expect something from them. JRPG has a thing for them, though: when they do a good game, it's a fucking great game, see Souls series, for example. Or SMT: Strange Journey, if you love Wizardry-clones.

If for every 50 JRPG, I got 1 great game, then that's ok. There are like 100 JRPG being released every year, anyway. Wish there was as many WRPG being released now as there are JRPG(even if mostly were shit, I'm all for quantity over quality if I have games to play). What is the point in waiting 5 WRPG per year if they are boring ass RTwP or Bioware-wannabe game? I'd kill to have Wizardry 6~8 clones being released every year, I wonder how much JRPG would have changed if Wizardry 6~8 or SSI's Gold Box had be a big thing there. Grid-based battle turn is so fucking rare in JRPG that is depressing.

Still, I can't point exactly the time that JRPG started becoming a teenagers sving the world thing(keep in mind that this love for teenagers in Japan is strong in its society, since being an adult in Japan means you are a workaholic that hardly have time for any fun, thus, being a teenage again is the same as having time to do things you love and enjoy, so there is a reason there for them doing it). But for some, this killed any chance of them enjoying JRPG while for others this is the reason they do play it. But at least, pantsu jrpg is a thing there.

 

[Hobo Elf]

They have? I like a number of Japanese RPG's, but they haven't particularly been refining anything. My understanding is that tabletop games never caught on in Japan, so Japanese RPG development is extremely insular, with their only frame of reference for RPG's apparently being the first few Wizardry games that were imported in the early 80's and Korean MMO's

PnP was pretty popular in Japan in the 80's, and not just for people who played PnP. Written retellings of PnP campaigns was quite popular there as well. Record of Lodoss War being a famous examples of this phenomena. The first Japanese MMO, FF11, was heavily inspired by EverQuest.

 

[Viata]

They have? I like a number of Japanese RPG's, but they haven't particularly been refining anything. My understanding is that tabletop games never caught on in Japan, so Japanese RPG development is extremely insular, with their only frame of reference for RPG's apparently being the first few Wizardry games that were imported in the early 80's and Korean MMO's

PnP was pretty popular in Japan in the 80's, and not just for people who played PnP. Written retellings of PnP campaigns was quite popular there as well. Record of Lodoss War being a famous examples of this phenomena. The first Japanese MMO, FF11, was heavily inspired by EverQuest.

It's still a thing there, although I don't know how big it is.
This is a focused-table top magazine: http://www.bouken.jp/pd/sf/index.html
But like any other media, it has also being turned into anime thing.
For example, they have an Idol-RPG: http://www.bouken.jp/pd/bg/
But they have Sword World 2.0, so they are excused for that.

 

[Hobo Elf]

They have? I like a number of Japanese RPG's, but they haven't particularly been refining anything. My understanding is that tabletop games never caught on in Japan, so Japanese RPG development is extremely insular, with their only frame of reference for RPG's apparently being the first few Wizardry games that were imported in the early 80's and Korean MMO's

PnP was pretty popular in Japan in the 80's, and not just for people who played PnP. Written retellings of PnP campaigns was quite popular there as well. Record of Lodoss War being a famous examples of this phenomena. The first Japanese MMO, FF11, was heavily inspired by EverQuest.

It's still a thing there, although I don't know how big it is.
This is a focused-table top magazine: http://www.bouken.jp/pd/sf/index.html
But like any other media, it has also being turned into anime thing.
For example, they have an Idol-RPG: http://www.bouken.jp/pd/bg/
But they have Sword World 2.0, so they are excused for that.

Nice character sheet. Idol PnP RPG isn't even the weirdest thing there though. There's that Maid RPG where the players (Maids) try to please / romance the (Dungeon) Master. Maybe it'd be fun if you had actual girls to play with, but we know better than that. Surprised that Sword World is still a thing. I guess PnP will always have a presence, but back in the 80's they sold millions of copies of PnP rulebooks, so it was fairly big there.

 

[LESS T_T]

Wizardry and Ultima are their frame of reference.

Looking at FF 15, I wonder if Skyrim and other western open world games (I remember FF 15 director cited Red Dead Redemption as one of inspirations) are starting to replace their positions. Also wonder how and to what extent mid-to-low tier JRPG developers will adopt those elements.

 

[Delterius]

There's that Maid RPG where the players (Maids) try to please / romance the (Dungeon) Master.

Basically what FATAL wishes it was?

 

[Viata]

Wizardry and Ultima are their frame of reference.

Looking at FF 15, I wonder if Skyrim and other western open world games (I remember FF 15 director cited Red Dead Redemption as one of inspirations) are starting to replace their positions. Also wonder how and to what extent mid-to-low tier JRPG developers will adopt those elements.

Yeah, I believe that too. Even Nintendo used Skyrim as inspirations for their new Zelda game.

 

[Athelas]

PnP was pretty popular in Japan in the 80's, and not just for people who played PnP.

But was it influential? According to Wikipedia PnP didn't become popular in Japan until after Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy popularized RPG's.

The first Japanese MMO, FF11, was heavily inspired by EverQuest.

I was referring to the influence MMO's had on single-player games. For example, JRPG's didn't have discrete side quests...until MMO's in the early-to-mid 2000's became so massively popular that it forced non-MMO developers to pay attention, just like how everyone is copying Skyrim these days. Games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy 12 (and 13 and 15) have hundreds of quests that consist of either killing a few monsters and/or looting their claws/furs, killing one very powerful monster that spawns somewhere or finding someone's lost heirloom in the middle of the wilderness. FF13 even went so far as to incorporate MMO-concepts in a turn-based system (drawing aggro and tanking with the Sentinel class). The source of influence is rather obvious.

With Skyrim's massive success, expect Japanese RPG's to become a whole lot worse.

 

[Hobo Elf]

But was it influential? According to Wikipedia PnP didn't become popular in Japan until after Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy popularized RPG's.

It was influential but not always necessarily mechanically, and the influence wasn't always specific to video games either. You can find echoes of PnP in the form you'd least expect, like playing a game that has a narrative presentation that feels like it's something straight out of a PnP campaign.

I was referring to the influence MMO's had on single-player games. For example, JRPG's didn't have discrete side quests...until MMO's in the early-to-mid 2000's became so massively popular that it forced non-MMO developers to pay attention, just like how everyone is copying Skyrim these days. Games like Xenoblade Chronicles and Final Fantasy 12 (and 13 and 15) have hundreds of quests that consist of either killing a few monsters and/or looting their claws/furs, killing one very powerful monster that spawns somewhere or finding someone's lost heirloom in the middle of the wilderness. FF13 even went so far as to incorporate MMO-concepts in a turn-based system (drawing aggro and tanking with the Sentinel class). The source of influence is rather obvious.

I'd say the obscurity of side quests is more of a side influence of guide books being a big market in Japan. That's the reason why a lot of side quests in their games are so incredibly obtuse and counter intuitive to our western minds. Shit like kneeling in front of a wall while having a specific item equipped so you can progress the main quest.. this was made specifically to sell guide books there. Like I said, it's a big market for them and for many games it is expected that you play with one. In the west guide books are treated as a cheat code.

With Skyrim's massive success, expect Japanese RPG's to become a whole lot worse.

I've yet to see any evidence to support this claim.

 

[Viata]

PnP was pretty popular in Japan in the 80's, and not just for people who played PnP.

But was it influential? According to Wikipedia PnP didn't become popular in Japan until after Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy popularized RPG's.

Because it goes like this:
1983: Famicon is released.
1984/85: Traveller and Dungeons and Dragons are translated into Japanese.
1986: Dragon Quest is released.
1987: Final Fantasy is released.
1989: The first table top JRPG, “Sword World”, is released.
So in Japan, they had the Famicon before D&D was released. So when Nintendo learned how RPG was a thing in USA(PnP, Ultima, Wizardry...), they started doing their own RPG on consoles. So you can see that for Japan, a generation of PnP players started after a generation of JRPG players were born. During the earlies 90s many PnP RPG were translated there(Call of Cthulhu, Cyberpunk, Shadowrun, Vampire, ...) and as console RPG started exploding in popularity there, PnP also started to dry up. So hardly any English PnP where translated there, but some companies started to doing their own Japan-centric PnP, like Tokyo NOVA. So during the end on 90s and early 00s PnP had its own success again, but this time for Japan-centric PnP, which where divided in two classes: New systems(Like Tokyo Nova) made for Japanese market and licensed Japanese media turned into PnP.
Now hardly any English PnP is translated there and PnP companies there started doing rules-light games with settings aimed at anime, light novel and console fans.
So Japan had its own development on PnP RPG. Started with English translated games, then it had its own PnP based on English ones, then its own kind of PnP and now the kind aimed at otaku(the anime fan kind).
It's funny, you can compare it with JRPG on console and it had the same development.

 

[Athelas]

I've yet to see any evidence to support this claim.

The troll image should make it obvious that I was joking, but I wouldn't rule it out either. Because games take years to develop, it can take some time before certain influences manifest.

I'd say the obscurity of side quests is more of a side influence of guide books being a big market in Japan. That's the reason why a lot of side quests in their games are so incredibly obtuse and counter intuitive to our western minds. Shit like kneeling in front of a wall while having a specific item equipped so you can progress the main quest.. this was made specifically to sell guide books there. Like I said, it's a big market for them and for many games it is expected that you play with one. In the west guide books are treated as a cheat code.

Okay, but I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. I said 'discrete' side quests to refer to quests that follow a structure of talking to a quest giver, finishing some task and going back to get your reward. Obviously, older jRPG's did have optional activities such as optional dungeons and the sort of secrets that you're talking about, but these weren't a substantial part of the game (and they usually didn't follow that structure).

Despite their story-heavy nature, JRPG towns were usually light on interactivity and, aside from letting you play mini-games, mostly served the same function as the town screen did in Wizardry 1-5: to let you rest at an inn and buy equipment and items. They didn't start to function as quest hubs until MMO's popularized that. Of course, MMO quest design isn't exactly progress.

 

[Jacob]

Formerly, games/anime were made non-okatu creative types who grew up watching Astro Boy but as adults read great works of literature, making shows like Mobile Suit Gundam, Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Berserk, Cowboy Bebop, The Big O, and various other creative works.

While I won't argue that these works you mentioned are important anime works, and that many modern anime sucks, I am somewhat disturbed by the implication the 90s creators are super-intellectual fellows and their successor are hopeless artists only capable of derivative mecha anime and child porns because they are not super-literate.

Also, I think most Japanese grew up on Astro Boy.

 

[Hobo Elf]

The troll image should make it obvious that I was joking, but I wouldn't rule it out either. Because games take years to develop, it can take some time before certain influences manifest.

I hope not. Open world meme needs to end. Of course, looking at the success of the latest Zelda game, it's unlikely that my wishes will come true.

Okay, but I'm not sure what this has to do with anything. I said 'discrete' side quests to refer to quests that follow a structure of talking to a quest giver, finishing some task and going back to get your reward. Obviously, older jRPG's did have optional activities such as optional dungeons and the sort of secrets that you're talking about, but these weren't a substantial part of the game (and they usually didn't follow that structure).

Despite their story-heavy nature, JRPG towns were usually light on interactivity and, aside from letting you play mini-games, mostly served the same function as the town screen did in Wizardry 1-5: to let you rest at an inn and buy equipment and items. They didn't start to function as quest hubs until MMO's popularized that. Of course, MMO quest design isn't exactly progress.

Ah, ok, now I understand what you mean. Not sure how many jRPGs actually use that quest hub system, apart from Xenoblade & X which are practically offline MMOs anyway. jRPGs that I play still tend to treat towns the way you described. The most common questing method that I've noticed is have the characters be a part of some guild and accepting help requests from a "bulletin board".

 

[Morality Games]

Formerly, games/anime were made non-okatu creative types who grew up watching Astro Boy but as adults read great works of literature, making shows like Mobile Suit Gundam, Ghost in the Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Berserk, Cowboy Bebop, The Big O, and various other creative works.

While I won't argue that these works you mentioned are important anime works, and that many modern anime sucks, I am somewhat disturbed by the implication the 90s creators are super-intellectual fellows and their successor are hopeless artists only capable of derivative mecha anime and child porns because they are not super-literate.

Also, I think most Japanese grew up on Astro Boy.

They read great works of literature because they didn't have any choice, television sucked for the most part. There were like five channels and only a couple of movies released a year. Now there are hundreds or thousands of all of those things on 3-7 formats. There wasn't nearly as much pulp or what we call 'popular culture' either, and most of the modern classics (Catcher in the Rye would be an example) were brand new.

To a certain extent, it was literature or nothing.

I'm also going to point out this is nothing surprising, or anything different from what you would expect. Most artistic and creative types in history were literate and cultured, the idea that someone could work in the creative industry and not have read a lot of classical works is a modern phenomenon.

There's a reason why old hat directors like Terry Gilliam and Ridley Scott talk about classic works of literature while new directors talk about films they watched as they grew up.

 

[TigerKnee]

A lot more people need to play the SaGa series

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Seems like I read a lot of complaints about how there aren't enough turn-based western RPGs, they're not tactical enough, they're lite crap, blah blah blah.

I got to thinking. Why aren't these complainers playing JRPGs?

I guess there's a chance a percentage of these people will be jRPG fans looking for a western jRPG...?