Incline How did you first discover RPGs?

[Lios]

I played Fallout.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Played Gothic 1 on release as a 9 year old kid, best game ever.

Gothic 1 is the perfect game for a 9 year old

 

[Black Angel]

It's weird how insanely different JRPGs are from the real RPGs we play here in the west. Must be incredible to grow up with Final Fantasies only, and then discover what real RPGs are like when you're older.

Exactly, this is what I feel. Can't help but feels like I'm late to the party, though. Because there's just so many games now, I don't know where to start.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Pretty much since I was a little kid. I'd just pop in all my dad's games. My earliest RPG memory is Dark Sun when I was 6 or 7. Did I get it? No, not really. But I had fun nonetheless. I think I made a party of all half-ogres haha. Also for some reason the campfires from that game really stick out in my mind and will always make me nostalgic.

 

[Vorark]

It's weird how insanely different JRPGs are from the real RPGs we play here in the west. Must be incredible to grow up with Final Fantasies only, and then discover what real RPGs are like when you're older.

Obligatory "What is an RPG?"

 

[Sigourn]

I think Final Fantasy IX came with my PSOne. Then I played Final Fantasy VII, then on my PS2 I played XII and then X. On my computer I played VI using emulators. And when I got a proper PC, my brother recommended Skyrim to me because it was the popular game at the time. It took me seven months to make the jump from casual pleb to prestigious masterrace (Skyrim -> Fallout 3 -> Fallout: New Vegas). Later I went to play (and beat) Fallout, Wasteland 2, Planescape: Torment, Gothic, among others. King's Field was a great discovery (well, levels 1-2 at least) and I'm currently playing Fallout 2 (a shit, SHIT). In the future I want to play the Fallout fan games (Resurrection and of Nevada) as well as the Infinity Engine games. Wizardry too. Ultima is kind of a bottom priority.

Also

It's weird how insanely different JRPGs are from the real RPGs we play here in the west. Must be incredible to grow up with Final Fantasies only, and then discover what real RPGs are like when you're older.

If I could be 13 again, I would definitely play JRPGs and JRPGs only. I think the closest I've ever came to love a western RPG as much as I loved JRPGs back in the day has been with New Vegas. And at least Final Fantasy XII and older didn't require a shitload of mods to be enjoyable.

 

[Startropy]

I somehow managed to avoid the genre for a large part of my childhood. The only games that I would play on the pc were old lucasart adventure games and the like which were a joy to figure out how to get sound working as a kid.

The first time I played anything RPG-ish may have been a demo of Neverwinter Nights from a PC Gamer mag. The demo was kinda meh in that it was literally just the tutorial part of NWN, but it introduced me to the DnD system which blew the mind out of kid me thinking "wait, wait, you mean I can play ALL these different classes, and I can build them however I want??"

 

[JarlFrank]

It's weird how insanely different JRPGs are from the real RPGs we play here in the west. Must be incredible to grow up with Final Fantasies only, and then discover what real RPGs are like when you're older.

Obligatory "What is an RPG?"

A game where you have a choice in how your character develops, be it through story choices or simply through picking which skills to raise during levelup, or even just picking whether you want to be a fighter or a wizard.

Every western RPG, even the most primitive and even the most popamole, have at least one of these elements.

In Might and Magic 3, you don't get to allocate points on levelup, that is done automatically. But you can choose your own custom party at the beginning of the game, creating 6 starting characters and determining their class and starting attributes. When it comes to spells, you also choose which ones your characters should learn.
In The Witcher, you play as a pre-determined character but you get to make choices during the storyline so this character behaves in the way *you* want him to behave, not a pre-determined scripted behavior. Also you get to raise the skills you want to raise during levelup.

Every single wRPG has at least a minimal amount of player-driven character development. Player-driven character development is what makes an RPG an RPG.

When I played Chrono Trigger, I didn't get to choose my character's starting skills. I just played a guy named Crono, and I got some party members later whose stats and skills were just as pre-determined as my own. On levelups, I didn't get to choose anything - the stats of the characters were raised automatically and I couldn't influence it in any way. Even magic spells and special attacks were just unlocked automatically at a certain level: there's no choice between an offensive spell and a healing spell; the offensive party member gets the offensive spell, the healer gets the healing spell. There is zero player-driven character development.
And when it comes to dialogues, holy shit that's even less player-driven! You don't even get to choose any dialogue options at all, not even Biowarean fake choices. Dialogues are pre-scripted and have zero player input at all. You don't get to play your character, you only watch your character playing himself.

While this is the only JRPG I played (other than tactical JRPGs such as Tactics Ogre, but those are considered an entirely seperate subgenre), I read that the Final Fantasies and other games of this genre follow the same formula: pre-determined character, pre-determined levelup bonuses, non-interactive dialogues.

Therefore, JRPGs are not RPGs because they do not contain any of the basic elements required to be called an RPG.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

A game where you have a choice in how your character develops, be it through story choices or simply through picking which skills to raise during levelup, or even just picking whether you want to be a fighter or a wizard.

If "the ability to pick skills/classes/party composition" is the hill you're going to plant the "True rpg" flag on, then jRPGs certainly qualify.

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy/Classes
-Choose different classes, spells, has class changes

https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Dragon_Warrior_III/Player_classes
-Build party out of different classes, Wizardry-style class changes

http://megamitensei.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Shin_Megami_Tensei_II_Demons
-Choose stats at level up, build party out of recruited/fused demons, multiple endings/important dialogue choices

http://saga.wikia.com/wiki/Classes_(Minstrel_Song)
-Recruit different characters/change classes/numerous weapon types/unique special attacks for every weapon group/all customizable/multiple endings/actual C&C

 

[Iznaliu]

If "the ability to pick skills/classes/party composition" is the hill you're going to plant the "True rpg" flag on, then jRPGs certainly qualify.

I believe these are exceptions to the rule, though.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

If "the ability to pick skills/classes/party composition" is the hill you're going to plant the "True rpg" flag on, then jRPGs certainly qualify.

I believe these are exceptions to the rule, though.

Not really. Every Final Fantasy game passes except FF4. All but the earliest Dragon Quest games qualify, all Phantasy Stars except the first one, all the MegaTen/Persona games, all the SaGa games, most of the Tales games, all of the Star Oceans, both Valkyrie Profiles, and the recent Xenoblade games, and most everything by Gust/Idea Factory. Not to mention all the eastern-developed Wizardry clones.

I'm sure there are many that don't qualify, or are so borderline it's debatable, but these are all the biggest and most popular franchises.

 

[Outlander]

I think it was Ishar 1. I couldn't get into the game, but I remember being impressed by the fact that some shady party members you could hire would steal your stuff while resting and leaving.

Shortly after that I installed Dark Sun 1 and fell in love with it