No.103118
I like Dragon's Dogma, Rune Factory series, Atelier Marie, Xenoblade Chronicles, Pokemon Gen 3, Paper Mario, Undertale, Earthbound, and Transistor.
No.103119
I'm mostly a JRPG guy, and of the WRPGs that I do like, the vast majority of them are things like Undertale, where it's less of a 'WRPG' and moreso an 'RPG by a Western developer'.
No.103132
In general it seems to me that western games of all kinds are more technically impressive but the Japanese make more out of what they have and make better gameplay and characters etc.
There are a few WRPGs that I like, Kingdom come deliverance, Mount and Blade and the general basis behind Skyrim but not so much the details. But outside of that nothing really appeals to me, even Fallout which has the same basis as Skyrim but a different setting.
Ohh, early Assassins Creed was alright as well.
No.103134
>>103123Is that a Touhou mod for Baldur's Gate? Where can I find that?
No.103135
>>103134 Some guy from /jp/ was working on it, but he never released it. That image is all that is left.
No.103136
I only play /qa/RPGs.
No.103141
The good wRPGs are head-and-shoulders above the good jRPGs, but I can enjoy jRPG kusoge a lot more easily than wRPG kusoge, probably because they're smaller in scope and tend to have at least one thing polished enough to pull you through all the kuso. If you get the complexities of a shifting narrative and player choice right, the level of engagement skyrockets and finishing just makes you want to play it again in a different way.
>>103119The terms refer to the style of game that each group originally labeled RPGs. The country where the game was made doesn't matter. Undertale is very much a jRPG.
No.103143
I was a console kid, so JRPGs all the way. I've pretty much never played a WRPG, although there are a bunch I'd like to try. Someday...
No.103148
>>103135What a shame, a mod like that surely would've been the kind of thing to carry over fame into today. Although I guess a whole game mod would be pretty much the same labor intensive undertaking as any full game today.
No.103151
>>103141>The terms refer to the style of game that each group originally labeled RPGs. The country where the game was made doesn't matter. Undertale is very much a jRPG.I very much disagree. That's like saying Avatar the Last Airbender is anime because it's vaguely of a similar style.
No.103157
Haven't played either in, uhhh, probably a decade, unless you count Disco Elysium as a WRPG.
No.103159
>>103143Yeah, it's funny how the best wRPGs had to offer were overlooked by many because they didn't play PC games. But at the same time they were probably too much for consoles to run and many too complex for a controller scheme. Though the tradeoff of audience for quality was well worth it.
>>103151I'd say it's more jRPG inspired than a wRPG.
No.103162
>>103151It's not like that because game genres are all determined by gameplay mechanics and there are distinct mechanical differences between jRPGs and wRPGs. If it were shorthand for country of origin we'd have jRougelikes and wMetroidvanias.
Animation comes in a broad variety of art styles in both the East and the West and it isn't used to determine genre in either. Anime has always been shorthand for "animation from Japan," not an art style.
No.103165
>>103140There's definitely something desirable in the ease of access JRPGs have compared to WRPGs. Picking up a game and just playing it without much issues besides maybe the occasional grind is a whole lot easier to get yourself in the mood for than one in which you'll need to start planning out your character and metagaming at times to get through.
Although I will say there's a great sense of satisfaction that comes from doing all the work and understanding of the ins and out of a WRPG to create the ultimate god-character or strategy that you can't really get from just killing a lot of enemies up until you're OP.
No.103169
>>103162There are plenty of JRPGs that differ from what you would consider those gameplay mechanics and there are plenty of WRPGs that follow those mechanics while never even thinking of themselves as being inspired by JRPGs. JRPGs aren't all about mechanics, just like anime as you mention.
Rougelikes are different as being from a certain location was never their selling point and even then I would not be surprised if their were Rougelikes that were JRPGs.
No.103185
>>103176Is King's Field sort of the Japanese Might and Magic equivalent? Or does that play differently.
No.103186
I think fallout is better than final fantasy. I've never completed either by the way
No.103197
Honestly, I don't like the two labels. Fire Emblem isn't Dragon Quest which isn't Pokémon. Arcanum isn't Morrowind which isn't System Shock. But, all of them get labelled as RPGs. They do have different tendencies, and a lot of stuff that's either far more common on one side or practically doesn't exist on the other:
- JRPGs
Rigid plot, geared towards telling a specific story
Whole party stacked on top of a single character outside of combat
Combat grid with irregular terrain
Turn-based fights where all members of a group act in tandem
Zero non-combat skills/stats
- WRPGs
Branching plot, multiple ways to progress and can even kill off relevant NPCs
Party members being separate from each other and moving independently outside of combat
Non-ARPG with only a single player character, no party
Non-ARPG real-time fights
Make character from scratch, shitload of builds
Non-combat skills/stats like speech, perception, or acrobatics, and skill checks
There's also that peculiar difference between isometric cameras, RPG Maker's "square" that follows the character vs the Infinity Engine's movable "diagonal" view.
It's true, as a whole and on average they're overall different, but it breaks down when you look at individual games, because they mix and match different characteristics.
Gothic is a third-person action game that's far closer to Dark Souls than to Pathfinder, it doesn't have anything in common with the latter at all. LISA is far closer to Earthbound than to Ultima Underworld. The Epic Battle Fantasy series follows the core archetype of a JRPG, but originates as a western flash game. (Play EBF 5, it's godly. Dude decided to replace mana with cooldowns and it improved everything so much.)
W- and J- just don't make for useful labels, the majority of blanket statements you make with them are going to be false unless you prefix it with "usually". The only one I think is legit is that J ones have much more focus on premade individual party members, while Ws outside of CRPGs often have much more generic characters. But that doesn't mean something like Etrian Odyssey V has an elaborate story and writing, because it doesn't, it barely has a plot.
Hell, I don't even like the term "RPG" itself. A lot of stuff gets classified as such just because it has basic mechanics like stats and equipment while having no ability to roleplay whatsoever. Might as well say that VNs are RPGs too. I think that's pretty dumb.
No.103199
>>103185That's before my time, I've only ever played the dark souls 1, some of dark souls 3 and bloodborne, and elden ring.
No.103200
Actually, flexibility and general freedom in gameplay being radically greater in western games is true as well. Jap games don't even come close, they don't try to.
No.103202
>>103185King's Field is more like Ultima Underworld.
No.103229
>>103197I agree to an extent. I think most game genres are actually pretty useless and could be better defined. However those new definitions would lead to confusion as people have different ideas on what a given game is and what would constitute a new genre or even an existing genre(just look at steam tags).
To me, the main difference between JRPGs and WRPGs is not in terms of mechanics or systems, they are all interchangeable. Instead it's in terms of characters, style, world building and general design philosophy. And while yes, people can and do try to replicate this, it never works.
No.103230
>>103200I don't know about that. I would say in many ways Japanese games are much more flexible and offer more freedom.
No.103231
>>103197But Fire Emblem is a strategy RPG, and DQ and Pokemon definitely have a lot in common. Anyway, it's true that these labels are used for convenience's sake, but I think it holds true that someone who enjoys some given JRPG or WRPG is more likely to enjoy other games belonging to the same label than to the other one.
No.103234
>>103229(not
>>103197) I get what you're saying, but I still think categorizing them based on where they were developed is kind of strange, considering we don't do that for any other genre.
No.103235
>>103234We do it with Anime and Manga because of the story, world and character elements. RPGs are a story, world and character rich genre, so I think it does make sense.
RPGs are also a more creative genre, a racing game made in Japan probably would not be that different than one made in the US, because they are using real cars in real places and trying to be as faithful to real physics and principles as possible so the J/W divide would matter less.
Another factor that might play some role is that the Japanese don't work with as many genres as the west does, particularly not expensive and technically complex genres. There aren't many Japanese FPS games and what they do make tend to be cheaper and more technicality limited, you don't really get Japanese COD and HALO. So it might also be that there is simply less of a need to differentiate other genres.
No.103236
>>103229It can be defined by turn-based or semi-turn-based combat vs. full action combat. The former is JRPG, and the latter is WRPG, regardless of the actual country of origin.
For example, Dark Souls is a WRPG made by Japan, which is part of why it was so popular in the west.
No.103237
>>103236No it can't.
According to that logic Fallout 1 is a JRPG and Link is a WRPG.
No.103238
>>103237Yeah... Can't really have that when Divinity and Baldur's Gate which I'd consider some of the staples of WRPGs are both turn-based. I think moreso the defining point of WRPGs would the heavy influence of D&D on them. Although maybe even then you can find exceptions...
No.103239
>>103238I thought that Early Japanese games were heavily DnD based as well or if not they share an ancestor in what DnD itself is based on.
The same elements are in all of there in many games they just evolved in separate ways. Like you have the classes, the orcs and goblins and even the early Dungeon crawler genre itself seems like it's just DnD but on a computer.
No.103240
>>103197>W- and J- just don't make for useful labelsI'd say the descriptions you just gave of the two are plenty useful. It's true that the RPG genre is applied very broadly, which is largely due to how many ways those mechanics can be applied, but that's why we have additional sub-genres. Etrian Odyssey is a dungeon crawler and Pokemon is a monster catcher, but tell someone they're jRPGs and they'll have a basically accurate idea of how the core combat plays. Without that distinction they might go in expecting it to be like Elder Scrolls and be sorely disappointed.
All classifications need to be done broadly and will break down to some extent in specific examples. A mahou shoujo is a mahou shoujo because there are mahou shoujo in it, but that doesn't mean Precure is Madoka. Genres are tools for generalization, as long as they provide a meaningful starting place for understanding what a thing is they are useful.
No.103241
>>103237Fallout 2 is an H-game without the h-scenes
No.103243
>>103235>>103240I get
why one would distinguish JRPGs and WRPGs this way, it makes sense. There's definite aesthetic and narrative differences between media made in the East vs the West, even if they're very subtle, and it can have a big impact on your overall enjoyment.
With that said, just I think there's other factors that matter more. Under the WRPG vs JRPG system, Undertale is in the same genre as the Elder Scrolls but in a different one than Mario and Luigi, despite having much more in common with the latter than the former, both mechanically and tonally.
The East/West distinction is worth noting, but I think having it be the deciding factor we use to categorize these games is a bit strange. I much prefer terminology like "turn based RPG" and "action RPG", with Eastern and Western being additional adjectives, rather than something baked into the acronym.
No.103245
>>103243It would depend on what the individual values in a game. If you really like Turn based games and that is what drives your preferences and not other factors then yes, turn based RPG and Real time RPG would be better terms for you.
Personally, I actually prefer real time RPGs over Turn based RPGs in a Vacum but it's actually whether the game is a JRPG or WRPG that most often determines whether I will enjoy it, I find turn based JRPGs more enjoyable than real time WRPGs even though I like the system less. So for me JRPG is a more useful title.
As for Games like Undertale which some people may feel is more JRPG like, that is subjective. It depends on what the individual appreciates from a JRPG and the feeling they get from it which is impossible for a westerner to replicate in it's entity. So you end up with some people thinking that a western RPG is JRPG like because it replicates some aspects they value in JRPGs but then they are sill western in other ways to other people and so they won't see it as a JRPG, kind of like western attempts at anime. So then calling Undertale a JRPG doesn't really help and can mislead as well, as well as not being true because it's not from Japan.
No.103246
>>103243The problem with that is that there are games like Xenoblade Chronicles and KotOR which are not on traditional turn-based systems, but definitely don't have you doing any action either. I'd say the defining traits are more about linear vs. branching progression; whether you're building a character and determining to some extent who they will be or just growing them into the role laid out for them. It's hard to find a good term to encapsulate that, so wRPG and jRPG are what we go with.
No.103255
Uh, sorry.
>>103229The biggest genres tend to be poorly defined, but there's a good deal out there that are very cut and dried:
Point & Click, tile-matching, city builder, fighting game, bullet hell, to name a few. These are basically "you either are, or you aren't", you can't have half a tile-matching mechanic. Or another one, card games. It's hard for something to "somewhat of a card game", you either have cards, or you don't. Slay the Spire stands out in being a singleplayer roguelike, but if you took it and made multiplayer while keeping all mechanics the same it would 100% be as much a card game any other entry in the genre. It's a game, it revolves around using a deck of cards, it's a card game. If a game features cards as a subset of its general gameplay, well, it has card game mechanics. But it's not "half a card game", it is qualitatively card game stuff, no getting around that.
However, if you look at the case of RPGs' stats and equipment that I mentioned you'll see that there is no official cutoff for "how many mechanics should this have". Does it go from 0 to 100, 0 to 10, 1 to 3? How do you measure the difference between a game whose daggers give you +DMG, +attack speed, +critical, +defense, +DEX, weapon element, +[critical hits to the head cause instant death to the enemy (30s cooldown)], etc...
...And, on the other hand, one whose daggers differ in that one has 2 DMG while the other deals 3? There's no real cutoff there, it can range from the most technical cathedrals of calculators to the simplest 1+1=2. It may not even have stats in the traditional sense. It may be qualitatively different and still get called an RPG because it has some sort of system that vaguely resembles that other blob of I'm not sure what that is.
>>103230In terms of anything to do with plot progression, that's an easy no. Negotiation doesn't exist, no disguises, no picking the vault's lock, no lying your ass off, no destroying the wall, no scaring the guards, no persuading the robot, no reality warping, these options simply do not exist. In that sense and others, Disco Elysium is basically the anti-JRPG. In terms of combat, it depends on what we're talking about. Games that use 1:1 tabletop systems can have a huge level of customization even at the highest difficulty tiers. Weird-ass jank and obscure busted synergies are to be expected.
>>103236>>103237>Dark Souls is a WRPG made by Japan>According to that logic Fallout 1 is a JRPG and Link is a WRPGSee? It's incoherent. If you end up saying that a non-Japanese game is Japanese and that a Japanese game is non-Japanese, it's not helping us describe anything.
No.103256
>>103240>tell someone they're jRPGs and they'll have a basically accurate idea of how the core combat playsBut then what happens if you tell them that Tales or Kingdom Hearts are JRPGs as well? It's radically different stuff, I wholeheartedly agree with
>>103243.
Mechanically, it's very obvious that the label makes no sense at all.
What we have to do is look at why it would make more sense to use the label in other mediums, but not really for videogames.
The important thing is that anime, movies, manga, novels, etc., you have no mechanical variation at all. You watch it from the start to the end and that's it, or you read it from start to end and that's it, that's what you do 99.9% of the time unless it's something like a choose your own adventure, a VN with routes, or Hopscotch. Certain works require more thought, they have a different relationship with the reader, but you still go through them from start to end. That's how it is.
Genres in non-videogame media refer largely to the setting and structure of their contents, because that's what the work has. Say you describe something as "cyberpunk". Could be a cyberpunk action film, cyberpunk comedy, cyberpunk thriller, and so on and so forth. But say you described a videogame as "cyberpunk action". Cyberpunk action.... what? Are we talking about E.Y.E Divine Cybermancy, Synthetik, Katana Zero? Without factoring in mechanics as well, we're just not describing videogames properly.
The difference between "fantasy grid-based turn-based strategy" and "fantasy real-time strategy" is incomparably more meaningful than the difference between "western fantasy grid-based turn-based strategy" and "japanese fantasy grid-based turn-based strategy". By using W/J- first and foremost we're doing something like saying mammals are quadrupeds: yes, no, maybe, why are we doing this, what about humans and dolphins, what about crocodiles and branchiosaurus.
W/J- does not indicate a narrative structure, a setting, a set of mechanics, or anything beyond a resemblance that simply doesn't hold for all the games grouped under it. BotW has zero linearity, it's considerably freer than most WRPGs. But again, you look it up, and you're going to find people calling it an ARPG, because you got equipment, buffs, and just enough numerical stuff for people to apply the label, since it's not a pure action game like DMC or Bayonetta.
>>103239Sword World, yes. What's more important to point out is that Japanese western-style fantasy isn't all that based on Tolkien, but on tabletop games. That's why you get something as silly as people being able to bring up the tridimensional stat panel of a random bandit in the middle of nowhere.
No.103257
>>103231>>103240I insist, EBF5 has more to do with DQ (at least, the older games) than DQ does with Pokémon. Fire Emblem is closer to Battle for Wesnoth, too. (Indeed, Wesnoth is apparently inspired by older jap stuff.) And take the Witcher: it's also a story, world and character rich game, it's an ARPG that's in many ways close to jap stuff, yet it's not J-. Nobody would ever argue that.
>Etrian Odyssey is a dungeon crawler and Pokemon is a monster catcherAnd it's precisely because of that that I disagree with the second part of the sentence. Temtem, a western game, is in many ways closer to Pokémon than EO is: Tem and Poké have you capture monsters that you pit against one another while swapping them in and out, in EO you have a number of characters with skill trees and multi-piece sets of equipment that are at all times part of a formation. That alone makes for a huge difference.
>>103235>>103245The distinction between JRPGs and WRPGs is, to me, along the lines of british comedy and burger comedy. It's true, they come from different cultures, they have different themes and approaches, but in that case too the difference between a work of satire and a vanilla sitcom is more relevant that its place of origin.
>impossible for a westerner to replicate in it's entityWe're talking specifically about Undertale here, it's by a huge margin one of the strongest candidates for the spot of "western videogame Japs love the most". You don't end up becoming friends with Sakurai and a writer in Famitsu by making a cheap ripoff, that's for sure. At that point things have gone well beyond subjectivity.
No.103258
Maybe Katana Zero isn't exactly cyberpunk, but it's the closest and most distinct thing I could think of.
No.103260
>>103256I don't think they're used first and foremost if there are other, more prominent mechanics. But if the game doesn't veer from Final Fantasy gameplay in a meaningful way, what other way would you describe that but a jRPG?
No.103261
>>103260Just turn-based RPG, having something like "non-movement combat".
No.103265
>>103257I disagree with the point about comedy, as again whether it's British or American makes more difference to me as I don't like American comedies.
There are Japanese people that are fans of full on actual western games that don't try to be Japanese in the slightest. Seed of the Dead is an ero Left 4 dead clone, so presumably the people that made that game played and enjoyed Left 4 dead. Japanese people can like western things too, even bad things like Left 4 dead.
No.103266
>>103265Left 4 Dead is a
good game.
No.103267
>>103265But you should also take a look at what genre of comedy you're watching. I don't expect them to be sitcoms.
>actual western games that don't try to be Japanese in the slightestGames whose creators
do not write articles on Famitsu.
No.103268
>>103267The Young Ones is a sitcom.
Given the games they are making, no I don't think they would.
But that does not mean that Famitsu writers can't like western games either. Indeed, Famitsu itself has rated 3 western games as having perfect scores, sure that is a lot less than the Japanese games rated as such but it still shows that there are writers at Famitsu who are fans of western games.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famitsu_scores No.103269
>>103265American Jews are funny
No.103270
>>103265Seed of the Dead is really bad
No.103274
>>103268Ah, true, my bad. I used "sitcom" the wrong way an-
>SkyrimWait.
Who wrote this? That's plain illiterate, I don't care where's it's coming from. Don't give a flip about GTA or Tsushima, this one's just wrong.
Hold up...
...
Huh???
https://s.famitsu.com/games/t/20367/reviews/Wtf am I reading??? Is rebyuuaa-san ten years old???????
peer review has failed us all for good scrap it it's useless
Okay, no, wait. That's bad. That's awful. It has considerably lowered my opinions of it.
BUT, the fact remains that Toby has made a game that resonated so well with the Japanese, he managed to find himself spending time with some notable folks, and it wasn't due to him having contacts or a prestigious position, it's just because they liked the game that much. If a person like Sakurai, an indisputably Ja-
WAAAAAAIT
https://s.famitsu.com/games/t/34865/reviews/OH SHIT NEGRO WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOIIIIIING
THREE OUTTA FOUR OF THOSE TASTELESS FUCKS AGAAAAAIIN
Ahem.
What was I saying?
Yes, yes. Essentially, we need to set a standard. We can't simply say all Japanese games are Japanese, and all western games are western, because, as you rightly pointed out yourself, Japs can make stuff like Seed of the Dead which looks like a DeviantArt asset flip. That's the issue I'm trying to tackle:
what does the J actually mean? What does it describe, when there are endless inconsistencies?
As I said with genres that are actually well outlined, card game mechanics are always card game mechanics and I have never seen anyone ever use the term in an incorrect way, because it has a qualitative character we can very easily describe. It's got cards, gg no re.
So I have to ask you, if games can fall under the group when they're radically different in every way while an identical entry gets left out, if the Japanese themselves can make non-Japanese stuff, then what are we even talking about? What kind of eight-dimensional definition are we working with? That's why I largely reject the terms, so do tell me how you can formulate this.
No.103276
Before we get too off-track, because I do think we're in danger of getting off-track, I don't think it's wrong to differentiate Japanese RPGs from Western RPGs. I just find it strange that nation of origin is given priority over something like gameplay mechanics.
Like, in my mind, Dragon Quest is a turn-based RPG first and a Japanese RPG second.
No.103277
>>103270But it's still better than Left 4 dead because it has ero. What does left 4 dead have? Nothing.
>>103274>THREE OUTTA FOUR OF THOSE TASTELESS FUCKS AGAAAAAIIN8 is still a good score, or do you mean the 3.0 User review? User reviews often do seem to be quite different to professional ones. The sample size of user reviews is only one though so it's hard to make any conclusive statements based on this.
Seed of the Dead is still a Japanese game, it's just made by Westephiles in the same way that Ghost of Tsushima was probably made by Japanophiles.
It's not an RPG though.
J just means it comes form Japan. Making it more complicated than this goes against the literal definition of the term and also only creates more confusion.
>So I have to ask you, if games can fall under the group when they're radically different in every way while an identical entry gets left out,They are different in terms of mechanics but they are all made in Japan and so while the mechanics may differ as is the case with anime, they still have that Japanese feeling even if the details are not the same. No Western game has that feeling.
You are overthinking this, it really is as simple as location. It's like asking somebody if they prefer movies made in one country or another or if they prefer manga over comics or anime over cartoons.
No.103278
>>103277Not him, I just don't get why where the game was made is considered more important than its mechanics, aesthetics and story. I'm not saying that nation of origin doesn't matter: it most certainly does. But I feel like, in terms of categorizing things, it should be secondary.
No.103280
>>103278Where the game is made generally has a strong impact on mechanics, aesthetics and story. Underdale may share similar mechanics with some JRPGs but it does not share the latter.
Most JRPGs feature cute anime characters in cute fantasy settings, I think most people would agree that they tend to have that in common. If that's what somebodies idea of a JRPG is and he asks for JRPG suggestions and gets Undertale, he would be disappointed.
Not all are like this and some Chinese games copy heavily from this as well as other aspects like mechanics. This hypothetical person might be happy with a Chinese game but if you dig deeper into these games they aren't the same as Japanese games, the characters are different even if they are drawn by Japanese artists and voiced by Japanese VAs, the story differs, the world differs, the mechanics can be a direct copy of a Japanese game but still feel different. This is not to say they are all bad, they can still be good in their own right as a Chinese game. So another person may be suggested a Chinese game as a JRPG and be disappointed because it lacks a nuance that he values in Japanese games.
But anyway, I can understand what you are saying, that in your opinion the mechanics matter more than the other factors and therefore whether the game is turn based matters more than if it's made in Japan.
That's not wrong and it is useful but it's a separate discussion and a separate frame of reference to JRPG vs WRPG. There are people that don't care so much about mechanics but care more about other factors so to them JRPG is a more useful term than turn based RPG.
The OP of this thread specifically used JRPG and even used the term Japanese spirit which gives the impression that this thread is more about where the game was made rather than about specific mechanics, he did not make a thread about turn based vs real time. That's a valid topic as well but it's a separate one.
No.103281
>>103280Thank you for replying to my post. I don't really have anything more to say on the subject, I just think your reply is good.
No.103283
>>103274It's true, Japanese are flawed human beings just like the rest of us, full of sin.
Tons of people were amazed with Skyrim and it includes them. Most of the people didn't play games that were like it beforehand, so it was a revolutionary thing to them. They have a pretty avid modding scene for it, too, for those of them that are into the PC thing. It's pretty cool.
Anyway, I don't think I care as much as you guys about some distinction between the labels like this. Something like "DRPG" or "dungeon crawler" works so well to have stuff like Legend of Grimrock and Moero Chronicle share the same label.
Although, something I find interesting is in the roguelike genre. Westerners generally make, well, "roguelikes", whereas the Japanese favor the "mystery dungeon" label that has the same general gameplay, but with a story attached and a far less severe penalty on failure.
No.103284
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon was the bee's knees
No.103286
This sounds like the infamous soft seinen argument
No.103287
>>103283Isn't Rougelike a contentious argument as well? I heard it said that Rougelikes don't have any kind of player progression on death so the games where you can improve are called Rougelites instead, or something like that.
I think Skyrim probably does deserve the praise it gets if simply because it had no real competition doing the things it does. Sure you had Oblivion and Morrowind but I don't think they quite had the polish and visuals to immerse your average player, it's really not until Skyrim that they had that.
No.103289
So, have you guys played the SaGa series? I've been interested in these games for a while but haven't gotten around to them yet, partly because they seem rather daunting. Apparently they are supposed to be kind of a JRPG take on tabletop RPGs, with open world non-linear gameplay, barebones stories, and various unusual dice roll-y systems. The lead designer is a Square Enix bigshot who worked on early Final Fantasies.
Maybe some of you remember Unlimited SaGa, which was lauded as one of the worst JRPGs for the PS2 by many reviewers. But according to a SaGa fan I've talked to, it was one of those cases of the reviewers not bothering to put any time into learning the game, and it's actually one of the most mechanically deep and interesting JRPGs, if you wanna call it that.
No.103290
>>103289I've played Romanceing SaGa 3 on emulator and thought at the time that it would have made a wonderful D&D setting to rip off of.
Yes the combat is deep, there's all this stuff with stances you can put the whole party into and multitechs and I never learned it well enough to defeat the final boss. It's possible to gimp your characters by training them with poorly-thought out weapons, or by going into the final dungeon having not bought the best spells (it's a one way trip). The game also had a pretty heavy ROMhacking scene in Japan.
I've played a bit of SaGa Frontier as well, didn't get too far in it. Not an easy game either
No.103291
>>103277No thinking like overthinking.
I mean that out of the four reviewers, 乱舞吉田, ジゴロ☆芦田, and 本間ウララ wrote the reviews for both. Funnily enough, I looked up ジゴロ☆芦田 and the first result that popped up was a twitterite complaining about these guys being inexperienced. I'm assuming they just got shocked from seeing a western open world for the first time, even if it's one as unremarkable as Skyrim. A 10 is ridiculous.
>>103280Look, I don't disagree on JRPGs having a special aesthetic, and about western games failing to replicate it, but you're being too much of a weeaboo. The irony of saying this is not lost on me.
I play games for the gameplay, that's what I consider to be their defining element, so the W/J- distinction is not something I'm fond of because it simply doesn't map onto gameplay.
>>103283Oh, no, it's not about eastern purity or anything like that (that sort of mysticism is exactly what I'm against). Even though I personally hate Skyrim, I'm not gonna look down on someone for liking it, it's just a videogame. But if a reviewer, a person whose job it is to judge a game, gives a 10/10 to something as meh as Skyrim, that's a huge red flag for me. Especially if they go on to give Undertale an 8, a game that is far from being a favorite of mine but I believe deserves recognition as something special and unique.
>>103286Yeap.
No.103302
>>103265I was going to argue about American comedy, but then I realized American comedy as a whole has changed dramatically in the last 20 years and most things people find funny from there are from the 20th century.
No.103305
>>103302The same is true of British comedy.
No.103315
>>103287Yeah, I hear "roguelite" as well for stuff where you can progress over time with stat gains or other things that carry over. I've also heard it used when death isn't game over, but instead just has some sort of penalty to it. I think that one TotalBiscuit guy coined it, or at least popularized it. I think both terms tend to be used way too often if there's procedural generated stuff, as a game saying it's "procedurally generated" doesn't get the attention of people, I guess.
It's unfortunate when terms get abused like it this because it makes it harder to actually find what you want.
No.103316
>>103315I spent years not knowing what a Rougelike or Rougelite was(and I still probably don't). I'd play one game calling itself a Rougelike and it's a card game, another and it's a top down shooter and then another and it's a dungeon crawler.
No.103317
they should just call them procedurally generated games
No.103342
>>103116I'm kind of torn on this. I would have said yes until recently, but a few years ago more and more JRPGs started to have really bad and generic stories with ok to obnoxious characters. In my experience WRPGs, especially indie ones, tend to have better worldbuilding and plot, as well as be more open to experimenting with the formula the in case of established series
No.105211
What's the soft seinen argument?
No.105212
Shows like Death Note or FMA.
No.105213
Soft seinen was an /a/ shitpost by idiots who couldn't bear to realize they enjoyed something aimed at kids
No.105237
>>105211seinen series that give you warm fuzzy feelings
No.105242
Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi P) one of the main minds behind the Final Fantasy series from entry 14 to the latest entry, as well as someone who worked on a bunch of Dragon Quest games believes (or believed) that the term JRPG is discriminatory.
https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fantasy-visionary-yoshi-p-really-doesnt-like-the-term-jrpg/ No.105247
>>105242Glad I can read this twice...
No.111633
>>111631>so why is it suddenly weird to do that with games?that's what was discussed above...
No.111634
>>107509I don't play WRPGs too often, but I'll play female if I can play third person and use lots of different sexy armor, I guess. If there's romance stuff then I'll usually play a guy, especially if it's first-person and/or you make a lot of decision to make him "you". This is also a bigger deal in Japanese games when romance is locked to opposite gender, so you can't be a cute girl in Harvest Moon games and marry a cute girl. I guess that's not really an RPG, though.
No.111647
>>107509I get more invested into JRPGs and explore more, read all the lore I can, unlock all the content I can etc. But with western games I don't really do that as it's not as interesting.
No.111648
>>105242>>105203It is in a way but it's hard to get people to understand what genre you mean without it, but also "RPG from japan" can mean a lot of games. "jrpg" has stereotypes associated with it (most of which have faded since the 2000s), but I guess the association still remains? See Yahtzee. I'm kind of surprised he's never faced accusation of xenophobia or outright racism for the way he feels about Japanese games as whole.
They should complain about this more.
No.133620
>>103116I like JRPGs more just because they're usually simpler. I've always enjoyed games that let you get into them with less effort on your part more.
WRPGs are generally more intricate affairs that try and give you a lot of mechanics to work with and immerse yourself in the world, but that far too often comes at a major playability cost.
>>103197honestly, I always thought line-of-descent was the most useful one (at least, most useful for defining JRPGs -- any game that is structurally or mechanically descended from Dragon Quest is probably a candidate to be called a JRPG)
it's not perfect, but genres are almost never perfect
>>105242it probably is, but that doesn't make it less usefully descriptive
it could be worse, you could absolutely be calling these games "DQ-likes", which is way harsher of a label