Whats exactly a "JRPG"?

Playing for the first time they'd probably go for the "proper" order, since BeefGates tend to be really good at discouraging people who aren't super determined.

Alternatively, they may just assume that the game is linear and not even realize they can go out of order.

edited 11th May '12 7:50:20 PM by JotunofBoredom

You don't need Strength until Victory Road, and you don't need to beat the necessary gym leader until you want to fight Giovanni (Since he's "gone fishing" until you beat 7 of them); instead of going through the Seafoam Islands to reach Cinnabar Island, you can take the route from Pallet Town. You can reach Pallet Town without fly by taking the route through Diglett Cave to get to Viridian City.

The main reasons why most people don't do this on their first playthrough are...

• The game encourages you to fight as many people as possible for experience, so most people don't skip gyms.
• It requires you to skip the big interesting things on the map.
• It requires some backtracking, and skipping fly is a pain in the rear for more impatient players.

I personally like how the game encourages you to go a certain path so that you don't get lost, but still allows you to wander off that track if you want to go crazy.

edited 11th May '12 7:42:41 PM by Scardoll

In the context of video games?

There probably isn't such a thing as a pure RPG. The way I see it, it's a hybridised genre by nature.

RPG to me is where the RPG elements of character building through stats, skills, inventory, feats, perks etc. are a core component of gameplay, that's it really. It's about the ruleset more than any other element. Linear or nonlinear story isn't really necessary.

JRPG/WRPG to me would just be a matter of where it was made.

When describing something like Fallout you'd call it a Sandbox Turn Based Strategy RPG. Fallout New Vegas a Sandbox Shooter RPG.

Dragon Age Origins would be a Real Time (with pause) Strategy RPG.

Oblivion would be Sandbox Action RPG.

I haven't played many JRP Gs but I'd call something like Devil Survivor a Turn Based Strategy RPG.

I think the RPG part of the genre is simply to point out that that there are RPG elements and it's a core part of the game (as opposed to something like Batman Arkham Asylum which has RPG elements but it's not really the focus) you would add on other genres to further differentiate something like Final Fantasy from something like Darklands.

J/W RPG is just an easy shorthand to give you an idea of the genre since they often have certain connations (JRP Gs tend to be linear in story, WRP Gs tend to be Sandbox in nature) but it's not often a good indicator and other genres can be better at indicating the style of gameplay story.

edited 12th May '12 5:14:56 AM by ShadowScythe

"RPG to me is where the RPG elements of character building through stats, skills, inventory, feats, perks etc. are a core component of gameplay."

That's the sort of definition I object to. I hate that that's basically what's come to define an RPG, rather than the actual "role-playing" part. Much as I love Earth Bound, it's not a role-playing game. It was a fantastic game, lots of fun, and with a great world. But there's no role-playing to it. So it bugs me that games like Earth Bound are used to define what an RPG is, while a more action-oriented game that gives the player a large amount of influence over their character, which allows for a significant amount of actual role-playing, would be declared "not a real RPG."

It just irks me.

What I would say is that the elements you describe are for JRP Gs. WRP Gs, though, I think tend to be more about the sense of player immersion than in stats and inventory.

I've long thought that we've gotten to the point where "RPG" and "Role-playing game" are two different concepts.

Yeah, one's a weapon, the other a form of entertainment.

Anyway, my thoughts on it here.

edited 12th May '12 2:45:43 PM by Ramus

"Role-playing game", as computer game genre, and "role-playing game", in the sense of P&P, LARP and similar things, are two different, albeit not unrelated things. CRPGs are pretty much defined by their statistics. If we go by actual role-playing, then no CRPG can be called a RPG, since role-playing is actually impossible in CRPGs. Picking dialogue choices is NOT role-playing. The assertion that CRPGs, that are sandbox-y or contain choices in quests, contain actual role-playing is, to put it mildly, laughable.

CRPGs have as much actual role-playing as Guitar Hero as with actual guitar-playing.

edited 12th May '12 2:57:40 PM by Nyarly

I think you're right in that they're not necessarily or definitively roleplaying, but I also think they can be a focus for roleplaying. For instance, if a player imposes a non-mechanical restriction on the behaviour of their in-game avatar, I would call that roleplaying. Given, this can be done in a range of games that fall outside the vidya definition of "RPG", but all the same, the agency afforded to players within the genre can better focus it.

One example might be if the character is obsessed with the colour blue, and will always wear and use blue objects irrespective of whether they're the most mechanically advantageous option. This isn't deep roleplaying or anything, but it's still roleplaying because of the narrative parameter the player adheres to. For another example, perhaps a character follows a rigid code of conduct they won't break for any reason, and the player always chooses options that adheres to that, even if it's not to most beneficial option in all circumstances.

Basically, what I'm saying here is that games can be a medium for roleplaying, and the agency provided by vidya RPGs make it a better outlet for it than FPS games or puzzle games or whatever. That said, I still agree that the addition of dialogue choices and the like doesn't inherently allow one to roleplay. "Real" roleplaying games, I think, require a ridiculous amount of agency — think Mount And Blade, where there's so much agency that the game doesn't even provide a central goal, but provides diverse enough mechanics that there's a variety of different methods of attaining one's own goals. This is a great example of mechanics alone enforcing a sense of purpose, but without the handholding that provides players with definitive solutions.

To be honest, one could say that Iji is more of a role-playing game than a game whose role-playing consists of choosing dialogue options.

It's always nice when choice and consequence are implemented into the game's core mechanics.

The problem here, is that people are trying to equate regions of Earth to game design choices. Some people need to think about it longer than others but lets talk "RPG".

There are few if any console or computer role playing games that are really are role playing games. The closest you can come electronically is a play by post game or other electronic chat methods. As soon as rule zero is gone, that rules are only guidelines the game master and players can discard whenever they want, its not a true RPG. A CRPG is a game taking inspiration or looking superficially like the real thing, which are mostly table top games.

With the unimportance of what they were inspired from out of the way, style of play comes next. JRPS have turned based combat...uh Final Fantasy VII, Xenoblade, Super Paper Mario, Custom Robo, Pandora's Tower, everything ripped from Mystery Dungeon and many, many other games say otherwise. Meanwhile Western Fallout is(was) turned based and is something of an icon.

So western RP Gs let you make your own character while eastern Js make force you to choose one or don't give you a choice at all. Chthulu Saves The World, Sonic Chronicles and Mass Effect being western while Ace Online, Etrian Odyssey and Monster Rancher being Eastern mean nothing to people who use this argument.

Well Western games are open and Js are linear and or restricted, which at this point rather than list games I'd rather remind people Japan invented the Metroidvania and pioneered Wide-Open Sandbox just as much as the west, but Mass Effect, The Dark Forces Saga and Dungeon Siege are all Western. One of the complaints about Eastern Golden Sun Lost Age, Saga, Metal Saga is "I don't know which way to go!"

So yes, JRPG is an RPG made in Japan, that simple. A thousand people will tell you otherwise but 1000 people will also tell you the sun is yellow and water is blue. A bunch of people saying something is true doesn't mean it is. The main difference between Western and Eastern come from cultural baggage. Most Americans at least Rip from Dungeons and Dragons or Warcraft, while Japanese are ripping from Dragon Quest and Pokemon, for example.

I think that avoids the actual, implicit question, though. How did we get here?

While there's obviously variance in the games produced by each culture, we're at a place where JRPGs are known for their SNES heyday and the modern games that resulted from those successes. Similarly, WRPGs are known to be the (sometimes distant) children of early TES games and the likes of Baldur's Gate. There's also a lot of difference in the way these games are presented musically, visually and mechanically. For instance, the West really took on board the concept of a first-person perspective, single-character RPG (although that was challenged with the success of Baldur's Gate) whereas Japan has been running with party-based RPGs with side-on battle views since the NES.

Are there exceptions?

Of course there are. But those exceptions don't invalidate clearly observable tendencies.

It's very clear that there are differences in terms of design process, and some of these will be simple results of the Japanese partaking of the general game building process in a different way to Westeners. JRPGs certainly, for instance, tend to present themselves through brighter, crisper aesthetics and more often contain nonstandard methods of character progression. Great examples would be the job system in Final Fantasy Tactics and the soul progression in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls. In contrast, WRPGs use a darker, murkier aesthetic and more often follow more standard methods of character progression.

There's also clear differences in how each game designing culture approaches combat, especially within turn-based systems. WRPG turn-based combat is usually actually a hybrid of turn-based and real-time systems, where JRPG combat more often takes the "turn-based" part literally, producing a different experience.

Those are just some facets — we could talk about this for weeks. In any case, Cider, my issue with your post is that it's an attempt at terminating the discussion with an ultimatum that doesn't get us anywhere. What value does leaving the difference between these two general styles of RPG to pure terminology hold? It says nothing about design, aesthetic, music, narrative, mechanics or the game-making process, and clearly these things often vary significantly between these types of RPG. A thread like this is always an opportunity to try and analyse the differences and think about the core experience each type of game shoots for.

I end up having to say this in every thread on this topic:

"RPG" is an artifact title. It was called such because the gameplay was derived from pencil and paper RPGs. Not because they actually are role playing games. Objecting because they fail that criteria and thus don't live up to the name is ridiculously pedantic.

Well, my (new) opinion about this is that RP Gs as a genre have no clear boundaries, I don't think that there's an element that says "if it's in the game then this game is an RPG". Rather, the genre began absorbing a lot of not-so-clear concepts into its "definition" as it evolved: role-playing, a lot of player agency, a focus on story, certain gameplay mechanics. The problem is that not every RPG has all of these elements, and other games can have some of these and still not be RP Gs. Basically this genre is an amalgam of (often hybridized) story/mechanic elements that work together towards an undefined RPG feel that role-playing games have.

What is the difference between WRP Gs and JRP Gs then? That these elements in JRP Gs tend to be slightly different because the genre didn't evolve exactly in the same way as it did here, but again, there are no clear boundaries.

edited 14th May '12 8:57:41 AM by Anfauglith

Okay, why isn't the Legend Of Zelda an RPG-JRPG. You explore through the world taking various quests, you're strength, speed, vitality and abilities gradually increase as you go along, it even shares the same high fantasy setting so many genre titles do. Why not, because it doesn't have the Statistically Speaking Number crunching and luck of the dice rolls made so popular by table top games and you don't generally increase your abilities through grinding(though you still get money that way).

Exceptions, exactly how many titles are straight? The only way to tell the Legacy Of Goku is Eastern and Marvel Ultimate Alliance is Western is from the art style, and the fact westerners would be more likely to do Marvel Comics and Dragon Ball. Both have predetermined characters to choose from, guitar music, real time combat and mostly linear progression. If you Dolled Up either the Western, Eastern distinction would be impossible to tell on sight.

The problem with breaking down a few reoccurring trends from a few regions is that it is over generalizing. What do the three Operation Rainfall titles have in common? Stats reminiscent of a pen and paper game. That's it, no game play, no story developments besides a clear main character, no settings no art styles beyond giant eyes. For that, Grand Theft Auto San Andreas is an RPG, having stats reminiscent of a pen and paper game. In fact, minus the ability to butcher NP Cs and scenery, it is more like two of the Rainfall titles than any other game made in the West recently, clearly a JRPG...yeah no.

How did we get here? Because people are always trying to separate Japanese things into their own little categories. Sometimes its xenophilia, sometimes xenophobia but largely its just because Japan was the first "Far East" society to keep pace with "The West" while keeping its since of self. You see they weren't really considered imperialists back in the day either, they weren't even considered good imitators until they beat Russia in a war.

But you're still avoiding the question. We didn't get here via politics — there are observable differences in the style of RPG each culture produces. And you're still trying to terminate the discussion without any analysis of how these styles evolved separately and what influenced them. For instance, JRPGs based on medieval fantasy often combined contemporary high fantasy elements with expectations lifted from fairy tales. They're, as a result, much more often a mashup of European folklore tropes than WRPGs, which are primarily drawn from D&D. The chivalrous knight archetype is pretty much dead in the West, but is enjoying a long and healthy life in Japan, as is the pointy-hatted witch and other "outdated" standards.

You'll get nowhere by presenting answers that draw away from the topic at hand, because they fail in any way to provide an analysis of what the rest of us can clearly observe. The question will continue to be asked because people will continue to observe.

It's what I was trying to say in the last paragraph...they are both RP Gs, but the characteristics of each element tend towards something different. Because genres in my opinion are defined and constantly redefined by the trends of the works that appear in them, and JRP Gs tend to have things in common with each other that they don't share with western ones, this is where the true separation lies, the bulk of each genre evolves on separate tracks. I think it's overly simplistic to believe the only difference is the region from where the game originates...

edited 14th May '12 11:18:07 AM by Anfauglith

You have two subspecies of a species that once underwent divergent evolution and are now undergoing convergent evolution too thanks to interbreeding, though there's still a lot of same-side breeding as well.

There are plenty of Western RP Gs in vaguely European fantasy lands that make you or let you become a Paladin. Wizardry, Ultima, Elder scrolls, Warcraft, Rifts. Pointy hatted wizards aren't gone either, thanks to Harry Potter, Dresden Files and Lord Of The Rings movies.

Conversely, the rainfall titles feature no knights, the one guy in shining armor is from year sixty China. Just because a trait is more observable in one place doesn't mean everything they put out is in that mold or even that its overwhelmingly that way. There is Fire Emblem and the Dragon Quest knockoffs are many, but there is also Super Robot Wars, Fossil Fighters, Monster Rancher, Metal Walker, games that have nothing more in common with each other than they do to Western series like Battle Of The Giants.

It ignores that Battle of the Giants and Combat of the Giants have as little in common with Skyrim, Runescape or Legends Of Zork than they do with any Japanese game or any other "Eastern Made" RPG you select at random. As said, the only real obvious difference between Boktai being Eastern and Diablo being western is the eye size and hair style of the characters but then you could say the same about Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, about Face Breakers and Dead Or Alive, About Bio Freaks and Darkstalkers. Where are the Wiki articles about W Fighters and J Fighters?

Or to put it this way, the clear cut differences between Eastern RP Gs and Western ones are more perceptions than actuality, mostly "justified" by looking at industry leaders, or at least hyped games and it falls down between rounds of washing clothes. JRP Gs have bigger more large scale plots? Really, 3 out of five Pokemon plots don't go beyond the area you can see, which is only a small corner of the World where Mass Effect is doing the whole purging of multiple species in the galaxy. Dragon Age has you fighting god babies while Monster Rancher just has you trying to stay in business. Ultimate Alliance has the continued fear reality coming down, Legacy Of Goku just has a dead planet and it isn't even a plot point.

We get here because sometimes, particularly when dealing with Japanese stuff, people try to make categories that are unnecessary. Sombreros are hats, unless you ask Americans, then they are a specific, wide brimmed, Mexican hat, even though Americans were wearing similar "sombreros" long before their war with Mexico. What is Anime but animation, Manga but books with sequential art stories? Why do some people push a distinction Japanese themselves don't.

A lot of Japanese games are in the vein of Dragon Quest, never mind the West was making games like Dragon Quest before Dragon Quest and did not stop making Ultima after Dragon Quest. Dungeons and Dragons, War Machine, War Hammer, Magic The Gathering, none of that stuff ever stopped either, the West has more turn based fantasy games than Japan does and maybe more than the East combined. There is little about "JRP Gs" unique to Japan, innovated in Japan, or not aped by the West if they didn't already have it.

If you can't pin down traits based on region, you should stop using regional terms to define them. Do you see the difference in "The West Makes More Open Explorations CRP Gs" than Japan and "Open World CRP Gs are western"? The difference between "Japan is less likely to use Ageless Faceless Gender Neutral Friendly Plots" to "Ageless Faceless Gender Neutral Culturally Ambiguous Adventure Person are not Eastern"? It'd be like calling the First Person Shooter the "Western Shooter". Wait, what are X, Water Warfare, Final Combat and Ocean Hunter then? Would SHUMPS be "J Shooters"? Then what would we call Nanostray?

These are different cases, though. Being able to don heavy armour and wield a large sword doesn't make one a chivalrous knight, because "chivalrous knight" is a theme rather than a mechanical class. Likewise for the witch, and pretty much any other example.

For another thing, JRPGs tend to use fantasy settings with high technology — steampunk, dungeonpunk, that kind of thing. Some WRPGs use this kind of thing in the backstory, but such technology is typically lost and unable to be used. That's a pretty interesting thematic difference, if you ask me.

Ultimately, though, games are frameworks for experiences. JRPGs and WRPGs are accepted to provide different experiences, and this is why they're considered different things. And yes, all games provide different experiences, but the fact that the JRPG demographic is separate from the WRPG demographic says a lot.

I'm pretty sure the Japanese draw a distinction between manga and Western comics — why wouldn't they? Western comics evolved from obscure pulp, and are mostly noted for superhero-related stuff. In fact, Western comics are grouped by genre while Japanese manga are grouped by demographic, which is a pretty significant difference. Manga also contain more content per an issue, lack coloured artwork (most of the time), and feature a different set of art styles. These are all pretty significant differences, even if the general shape of each medium is similar.

And so it is for JRPGs and anime. In fact, whereas Western cartoons were born from mid-20th century animated skits, Japanese anime was drawn from the lengthier, more plot-oriented manga. To this day, anime is known for having a narrative style closer to Western live action than Western cartoons. These alter the experience of each medium and this is what causes the demographic divide.

Those are different mediums, and I think it's interesting to note that adaptations of the Warhammer setting into the video game medium have been real-time. Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights, almost direct adaptations of the D&D rulesets into a new medium, were hybrid turn-based/real-time rather than strictly following the structure of the tabletop games.

edited 14th May '12 3:50:44 PM by MadassAlex

So after 5 pages and some people (including myself) cant really decide what the fuck is a jrpg and honestly this thread is kind of a fail by now /:

It might just be best if you pick the best sounding definition from a post in this thread, or go by the Eastern RPG page.

Hey I know this thread it 3 years old, but I didn't want to put this as the quote for Eastern RPG "To me a JRPG just isn't a JRPG unless it ends with teenagers using the power of friendship to kill God" -Zero Punctuation

edited 12th Apr '15 8:37:50 AM by WC-83

Last post was 2 years ago, but I wanted to let you know that I went ahead and did just that.