What aspects of a jRPG makes a jRPG?

[monkeydlu]

Well, some RPGs from japan have you creat your own character. It's not all that uncommon. Sakura Wars for example.

Well, I geuss you'd have to consider the sims as RPGs as well. but it's still technically Role Play.

As for jRPGs themselves, I always find the art much more enjoyable than western RPGs. They always go for the fantastic look while western rpgs try to aim for a realistic look, except the theme is always fantasy.

Same with the story lines, jRPGs tend to have something for you to follow and the player really can't affect the ending. I think thats alot more fun than going around with a very vague story, even with some extra freedom.

 

[the7k]

cRPGs (jRPGs) are on rails, pcRPGs are as open-ended as they can be. If only it were possible to make an open-ended game that had characters you can sympathize with...

I find it very hard to get into open-ended RPGs. When is the last time you gave more than half a crap about killing any given character in Oblivion? If I don't feel a strong connection with the characters, and the story is generic or non-essential, it just boils down to level grinding, the thing I dislike most about any RPG.

Not that I haven't played badly generic cRPGs, but even a lame story tends to have a much greater impact on me than leveling a sorceress up for hours on end so that Chain Lightning is a bit stronger.

 

[Marcus]

shitty dime-a-dozen anime 'artists'

corny, love-interest-fueled character dialog

a storyline that gets too far up its own ass with morality, and right/wrong, while not really being original

a cast of characters that all have unnatural hair colors

a 'big-brother' bad guy who can kick the main character's ass at any given moment, but never does until it's too late, and he always has 'better things to do'

cute, and likeable characters - if you're a weaboo - to cover up typical, run-of-the-mill gameplay

a budget that was spent almost entirely on popular rock/pop artists/composers

but then again, i'm biased.

I'd like to add to cruelty's list because I think it's pretty spot on:

-Mediocre turn based battle system that does nothing new but people eat it up because holy shit it's turn based.

-God is the badguy. Always.

-The main characters are always incredibly positive and regardless of how the odds stack against them, they spout out random bullshit about love and friendship and make it through the day.

-Speaking of which, the heroes never win through their own skill. They simply rely on some sort of deus ex machina to save the day.

-The game's are longer than they should be and the gameplay is lengthened with extra dungeons or completely obscure puzzles.

B) Youth Worship. For some reason you have an irresistably adorable child in your party. She might be wearing skimpy clothing. Everyone in your party is 17 or under except the "old man," who is 32.

Now this has always disturbed me. I love children in the media. There's something that draws me to the struggle of minors in dangerous situations but Japanese people do not know how to write for kids. The children in jRPGs are basically mini-adults as opposed to actual children. They're smarter than adults, stronger than adults, more sexually active than adults, and they look like fucking adults despite their 15 or 16 age. Has anyone read the Battle Chaser's manga? The one thing that ruined that entire series for me was that the kids were 15 years old, freshmen in high school, but had the appearance and build of adults in their mid-20s!!

 

[Anonymous]

I mean RPG's that matter. That sell.

The west has Blizzard, and ..... Well, that's about it. Oh, and BioWare (KOTOR).

what

bethesda softworks (elder scrolls series)
jowood (gothic series)
black isle studios (baldur's gate series, icewind dale series, planescape: torment, fallout series)
obsidian entertainment (neverwinter nights 2, knights of the old republic 2)
lionhead studios (fable)
gas powered games (dungeon siege/dungeon siege 2)
troika games (arcanum, vampire: the masquerade - bloodlines)
origin systems (ultima series)

and that's just off the top of my head. all of these games and series are incredibly popular.

 

[Despain]

Also Rare is from England and they made Banjo-Kazooie.

like pok?mon, a game so good that it transcends the concept of genre

 

[Diedrupo]

I mean RPG's that matter. That sell.

I dunno about that... other than Final Fantasy, the best selling RPGs are western-made. Oblivion and Morrowind for instance, sold over a million copies each. PC RPGs still have a considerable niche in the market and often sell as much or more than console RPGs that don't begin with 'Final Fantasy'. Of course this is just talking about western sales, not Japan-only sales (where jRPGs dominate).

Also, Mass Effect just got released on the 360/PS3 and it's likely going to be hailed as RPG of the Year by virtually all western publications.

The west has Blizzard, and ..... Well, that's about it. Oh, and BioWare (KOTOR). Japan boasts the most significant numbers of RPG sales, excluding MMORPG's, because, let's face it: they're different genres. I'm sure people'll have all kinds of things to say about that statement, but it doesn't really faze me: I won't play an online RPG like I'll play an offline one. They're very different.

I wasn't even talking about MMORPGs, which I consider to be a separate genre on their own. It's good that you mentioned Bioware, but they aren't the only major RPG company in the west. Bethesda? Atari (for NWN)?

But then I guess you could say a jRPG is different because it has anime-style characters and references to cultural things that people'd only really get in Japan ... Otherwise, they pretty much founded the style of gameplay altogether, so I stick by my previous statement of saying that classifying them differently is redundant.

Well, I haven't delved into their differences, but I think you can imagine the difference by looking at the divergence between anime and modern american cartoons, both of them originated from 1950's disney animation and both have taken starkly different paths and borrowed elements from each other as well. Same thing with jRPGs vs wRPGs.

I play both, and while I play more jRPGs than wRPGs, I generally find wRPGs to be higher quality on average since they tend to be more massive in scope, typically more nonlinear, and typically have better writing.

 

[Luminier]

I dunno about that... other than Final Fantasy, the best selling RPGs are western-made.

Really? Dragon Quest, as a franchise, is the thirteenth best selling video game franchise, in the world. There aren't even any western made RPGs above that. Unless you count The Sims(which I don't.), or Lineage(which you wouldn't.).

Of course, this is counting it as a franchise, and not a single game. Plus, I'm pretty sure that most of those sales are from Japan. Still, though.

I play both, and while I play more jRPGs than wRPGs, I generally find wRPGs to be higher quality on average since they tend to be more massive in scope, typically more nonlinear, and typically have better writing.

Those first two points don't factor into quality, as they're matters of opinion. The less-than-stellar writing could be attributed to changes in the dialogue, and intricacies of story, due to localization. Though, this has become less frequent in recent years, with better localization teams being put together.

 

[Aeon Blue]

Those first two points don't factor into quality, as they're matters of opinion. The less-than-stellar writing could be attributed to changes in the dialogue, and intricacies of story, due to localization. Though, this has become less frequent in recent years, with better localization teams being put together.

Eh, actually, japanese texts are often worse than their english counterparts. Not to say that shoddy localization isn't a problem (it is) but in their natural form, japanese writing tends to go super-angsty, hyper-exaggeration. Websites typically read along the lines of, "Best game of the century! So good you'll gouge your eyes out and cry perfect tears of blood, each filled with perfect happiness that will drop down into your soul and fill you with enlightenment!" I'm not exaggerating. A good part of localizing japanese text for an english audience is toning it down to sound less ridiculous.

It's hard for games to have good localization because 1) localization jobs will be given to japanese translators in-house before better american translators, resulting in awkward as hell writing and 2) even if they do hire brilliant translators, execs doing a final editing job will hack it up and make it more "japanese". (Angsty, cliche, etc.)

Then there are the basic japanese story elements again, as I mentioned before, which really get old past a certain point.

In comparison, western RPGs have remarkably fresh, subtle, intricate writing, that will rely more on new ideas and solid characters. Plus you can't beat native writing that doesn't have to worry about anything being lost in translation.