Western/Eastern RPG split.

So, some video game trope pages split Role-Playing Game examples between Eastern and Western RPGs. Does this split refer entirely to the game's country of origin, or is it more stylistic? Undertale for instance is a game made in the US, but done largely in a typically Eastern RPG style. Most pages seem to sort it under Eastern RPGs, but I've seen one page (True Final Boss) that sorted it with Western. Would it be easier to just lump all RPGs together? There are some differences between the styles, but also a lot of cross-pollination of ideas.

Personally, I think that the major reason for the split is that it mirrors a split among the fandoms for those games — there's a certain amount of cliquishness involved in preferring one style over another. Trope-wise, eastern RPGs seem to follow a lot of anime conventions and have a similarly huge body of memetic copycatting. The idea, therefore, is that since we split anime/manga and western animation, a similar split is warranted for RPGs.

The question that I would ask is whether a new user, going to a trope article, would be able to immediately understand the distinction between Western and Eastern RPGs and look for a work in the proper folder. If not, then the distinction is harmful and should be removed.

It really is a matter of fandom cliques.

JRPG and WRPG are really limited as categories, because older games keep getting grandfathered in. The problem with that is that back then, most RPGs were mechanically not all that different, regardless of which side of the ocean they came from. And anime-ish influences were pretty limited before the late 90s, when JRPGs started moving away from the Medieval European Fantasy tropes they'd indulged in prior to that point.

If you categorize to include the games before the JRPG shift then, the categories don't make sense. And if you exclude them, then you have to have a clumsy three-way split between different folders. Neither option really works in my view, so...

...This is far from the most arbitrary genre split we use for videogames, though

It's not even a thing started by TV Tropes. It started in the SNES era where the serious design differences became very clear with JRP Gs being a story driven influenced by Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and WRP Gs going in the direction of freedom and dialogue choices influenced by Elder Scrolls.

The design differences are extremely clear, hell Square Enix actually consulted Bioware on Final Fantasy XIII 2 when it attempted to add more WRPG elements to the game such as the dialogue choices that appeared in it. Hence why you can buy N7 costumes for that game.

edited 23rd Nov '15 3:43:21 PM by Memers

I think you have your time frames mixed up ^note The first ES game didn't come out until 1994 - 4 years after the release of the SNES - and it took until Morrowind (2002) for the series to move beyond niche status. Meanwhile, Bioware released their first RPG, the original Baldur's Gate, in 1998. The most influential WRPG series of early to mid 90s were Might and Magic, Ultima, and Wizardry., but yes, this is a debate that existed long before TV Tropes was a twinkle in Fast Eddie's Buffy-loving eye.

edited 23rd Nov '15 5:10:40 PM by TotemicHero

As I understand it, Eastern RPGs tend to be very tightly scripted, with limited variation in how you are able to progress through the plot. Western RPGs are defined by their sandbox approach.

A mostly linear plot is one of the qualifications, but not the only one. The major qualities also include:

• A predetermined cast of protagonists. While their abilities may or may not be up to the player, their personalities and plot-related actions never are; those are written by the developer. The main character may be more of a blank slate, but he/she is the only one allowed to be as such.
• Character advancement is almost completely done through winning combat. You may get new abilities from the plot if the main protagonist is The Chosen One, and side quests may net you better gear, but you will have to eventually fight enemies if you want to make your characters stronger.
• A plot running on Black-and-White Morality. You are playing as the good guys, period, and you are out to stop someone or something who is clearly evil. The protagonists may not be 100% good at the start, but by the end of the game they will be on the side of "white" morality. (May fall into Designated Hero category depending on how the game is written.)
• The setting will either be Medieval European Fantasy or some flavor of Science Fantasy. In the latter, the number and role of the science fiction and fantasy elements may vary, but there will always be some of both.
• Finally, the art style will involve some Eastern art elements. This can take the form of Animesque, or alternately be realistic while being based on Japanese depictions of beauty and good looks (because the protagonists always look good), but it will be present in some form.

While some games may play with one of these rules, generally anything that qualifies as a JRPG or an Eastern RPG (whatever you want to call it) will play most of them perfectly straight. And as I said, the rules weren't codified until the mid-late 90s. Chrono Trigger (1995) and FFVII (1997) are the big ones that I think made these conventions stick.

edited 23rd Nov '15 6:44:09 PM by TotemicHero

This is really just a byproduct of having a linear plot, not an important element

I don't think setting a game in feudal Japan disqualifies it from being a JRPG :/

Because they're drawn by eastern artists

These are genre conventions, not major defining elements

They were defined way earlier than that and most of those are not required.

The SNES era really defined them with Final Fantasy 4-6, Secret Of Mana, Star Ocean, Tales Of, Shin Megami Tensei, Dragon Quest V. the PSX era just built on the foundations of all of those with sequels and new series like Atelier Marie, Suikoden, Persona, Xenogears.

The biggest defining aspect of JRP Gs is they are completely character driven with a defined cast, party, progress in a go to next cutscene in a predetermined fashion with very little input on how things go. They also are very structured combat system wise with very clear in combat and out of combat.

WRP Gs emphasize freedom, character creation, dialogue trees, etc.

This even crosses over into MM Os directly comparing Final Fantasy XIV and World Of Warcraft is striking in the design choices.

Shouldn't this be in trope talk?

edited 23rd Nov '15 7:44:41 PM by Memers

Ugh, I really don't want to get into a semantics argument...well, might as well just re-iterate my original point, with another tack.

I will assume you consider the first Final Fantasy game a JRPG. It meets all of the criteria you mentioned save for a predetermined cast. (If you don't think of it as such, that makes my point work anyway.)

Now, let's look how that stacks up against the classic Gold Box D&D games. Let's see...party-based, check, it's a D&D game. Linear progress with minimal input...you better check that one off. Clear division between in combat and out of combat? Check again, combat is a separate mode from moving around the areas.

So...if you file FFI as a JRPG, would you file the Gold Box games as JRPGs? Or more importantly, would a random wiki reader looking for examples on it look for it in the JRPG section? That's the key point, and it's pretty obvious that they wouldn't, even if it meets your criteria. Oh, and release dates? Final Fantasy I was in December 1987, Pool of Radiance (the first Gold Box game) was in June 1988. So yes, they are as close to contemporary to each other as you can get.

While we may disagree about where the cutoff point is, the fact is that there is a cutoff point that, before which, there were no significant differences between RPGs made in Japan and RPGs made in the United States. And that classifying the games made before that point into either category would raise the problems I stated above. That make sense?

edited 23rd Nov '15 8:31:21 PM by TotemicHero

The earlier games can be pretty similar, but we still need somewhere to put them in the examples

FFI also has spell memorization rather than mana, Beholders (renamed in the West due to them being original to D&D), and a Bahamut that's a dragon (rather than the actual myth). FFI is totally just a D&D game.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, there's a very clear difference in the perception of WRP Gs and JRP Gs. It definitely seems comparable to the division between Anime/Manga and Western equivalents.

On the other hand, the split has happened much more recently for the RP Gs, and iconic JRPG franchises like Final Fantasy definitely started in a much different place than they are now, so it's a lot harder to draw a line in a way that's easy for people to immediately understand.

The Wizardry series is one that heavily influenced JRP Gs to the point that it essentially disappeared in the West and continued as a Japanese series.

edited 24th Nov '15 12:31:50 AM by Jokubas

It's not really up to us though to make the distinction. The gaming world categorize RP Gs as JRPG, WRPG, SRPG/TRPG, and/or ARPG and occasionally more than one. Hell looking up Namco's Facebook posts on Tales Of Zestiria they flat out call it a JRPG, It's kinda the same situation as Rogue Like.

RP Gs have been borrowing elements from other games for a long time like Persona 4 is a Dungeon Crawler JRPG combined with a traditional Japanese Dating Sim along the lines of Amagami. And other games have been borrowing RPG Elements. It really matters what they bill themselves as and primary attributes.

edited 24th Nov '15 12:56:07 AM by Memers