I went digging around and it turns out I have The Last Story and a WiiU?! I don't know if I'll ever set the latter up to play the former. But, I guess it's nice I have the option?
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Talking JRPG Times: Animus All the Way Down
- Thread starter Issun
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- but thou must jarpigs
Ok, you asked for it, don't say I didn't warn ya.
It's a multilayered reasoning. First being what False alluded to where the roots of the 'genre' aren't even Japanese, so the initial division is nonsensical.
The second being that, during their hayday in the NES through the PSX eras, where they were at their most markedly different from their "Western" counterparts, nobody even called them JRPGs! It's an anachronism. Back then, gamers were more inclined to be divided by being either console gamers or PC gamers. JRPGs were the overwhelming style of RPGs on consoles because that's where the Japanese market was at, and Western devs who made RPGs were overwhelmingly making their games on PCs. You'd be much more likely to see discussion of the delineation be described as "Console RPGs" vs "PC RPGs". Especially when the audience for these games were little kids who might not have even had an awareness that what they were playing was a game of foreign origins to begin with. (At least until anime stylings and advertisements became more in vogue.) And the discussion of these contrasts being the purview of professional writers in commercial publications rather than any joe or jane with a keyboard on the internet.
The third part being that, the shift to differentiating between "JRPGs" and "Western RPGs" or often just default "RPGs" comes during the 360/PS3 era, where PC devs essentially gave up en masse at making exclusively PC games and started porting their games to consoles. So now you have to find a way to differentiate Console RPGs from PC RPGs because now they're just RPGs with markedly different styles. But instead of delineating between their genre origins and influences like you would say apply to "Rogue-Likes" or a description that is indicative of the kind of experience you're about to have (the way we used to delineate between Action RPGs, Strategy RPGs, etc) it's now nationality that's the dividing line. Which is always hairy and problematic. Defining anything as "Western" to begin with is steeped in the history of racism, bigotry, and colonialism origins. So making the "Western" games now labeled "Western" and labeling the other games from their nation of origin, you're perpetuating and reinforcing an obsolete and quite frankly racist world views and applying them to a space that previously had been neutral and absent of these labels. Because calling anything "Western" and then differentiating that from other nationalities only serves the purpose of othering the outsiders. Especially nonsensical when my home of the US is supposed to be this cultural melting pot, and a lot of us have nothing to do with "Western" Europe, but their shit gets lumped in with us as default "Western" but a thoroughly modernized and liberal nation like Japan - that models its society in so many ways after "Western" ones - is still the perpetual outsider. It's the reverse of progress. It's racializing something that previously wasn't. And now instead of discussing a game by its merits or form, you're focusing on differentiating by nationality. It's disappointing but I guess not to be unexpected considering the arc Gamers
and their discourse have gone down in the past few decades geopolitically.
The fourth part being that, while games coming from Japan and the "West" (notice how every time I always refer to the "West" or "Western" I keep using quotes? That's always been a silent form of protest from me) might have had strong structural, stylistic, and narrative differences at one time on average, that difference has almost all but completely disappeared. Tons of games created by "Western" developers adopt anime motifs, DQ-style combat systems, etc; and most high profile Japanese RPGs have gone about adopting culturally neutral art styles, and gameplay elements that historically have been more at home in games developed by "Western" devs. Like, if we look at the most recent numbered FF game, that's a game where the character designer is an Italian fashion designer, the art style is photo-realistic, the mythology cribs from Western Christendom's greatest hits, the form of the game is an American style road trip that's got everything short of the Route 66 signs on the side of the road, and the gameplay is an action game that feels more like Legacy of Kain or Prince of Persia than an old fashioned Dragon Quest. But that's a Japanese RPG, rather than just being called a more neutral, simple, "RPG". This is to say nothing of how multicultural most dev teams are these days, where games aren't created anymore by single studios, but have large parts of the production spread out across all corners of the globe. Meanwhile we've got games like Undertale that are loving homages to the "JRPGs" of yore and even get categorized as a "JRPG" despite being made by a white guy from New Hampshire. So even if these distinctions used to be meaningful and useful, they've become almost completely meaningless in the modern gaming landscape where old genre labels are already pointless, and everyone is mixing influences from everyone else.
I don't have any great answers here for how to better do things, besides just stop obsessing about arbitrary and useless labels in general. Which makes me feel like any consternation over these labels to begin with on my part is an embarrassing waste of everyone's time. I will use the terms "JRPG" and "Western" regularly myself out of simple convenience/ease of interpersonal communication and not wanting to work myself up into a stink and get distracted any time the terms come up or get into a tisk tisk, tut tut, lecture that becomes obnoxious. And I don't blame anyone or am looking to chastise or guilt anyone for just saying what the rest of society says because that's just how things work. But it sucks and I resent it. We ought to be better than this, and it's just a continual reminder that we aren't.
The third part being that, the shift to differentiating between "JRPGs" and "Western RPGs" or often just default "RPGs" comes during the 360/PS3 era, where PC devs essentially gave up en masse at making exclusively PC games and started porting their games to consoles. So now you have to find a way to differentiate Console RPGs from PC RPGs because now they're just RPGs with markedly different styles. But instead of delineating between their genre origins and influences like you would say apply to "Rogue-Likes" or a description that is indicative of the kind of experience you're about to have (the way we used to delineate between Action RPGs, Strategy RPGs, etc) it's now nationality that's the dividing line. Which is always hairy and problematic. Defining anything as "Western" to begin with is steeped in the history of racism, bigotry, and colonialism origins. So making the "Western" games now labeled "Western" and labeling the other games from their nation of origin, you're perpetuating and reinforcing an obsolete and quite frankly racist world views and applying them to a space that previously had been neutral and absent of these labels. Because calling anything "Western" and then differentiating that from other nationalities only serves the purpose of othering the outsiders. Especially nonsensical when my home of the US is supposed to be this cultural melting pot, and a lot of us have nothing to do with "Western" Europe, but their shit gets lumped in with us as default "Western" but a thoroughly modernized and liberal nation like Japan - that models its society in so many ways after "Western" ones - is still the perpetual outsider. It's the reverse of progress. It's racializing something that previously wasn't. And now instead of discussing a game by its merits or form, you're focusing on differentiating by nationality. It's disappointing but I guess not to be unexpected considering the arc Gamers
and their discourse have gone down in the past few decades geopolitically.The fourth part being that, while games coming from Japan and the "West" (notice how every time I always refer to the "West" or "Western" I keep using quotes? That's always been a silent form of protest from me) might have had strong structural, stylistic, and narrative differences at one time on average, that difference has almost all but completely disappeared. Tons of games created by "Western" developers adopt anime motifs, DQ-style combat systems, etc; and most high profile Japanese RPGs have gone about adopting culturally neutral art styles, and gameplay elements that historically have been more at home in games developed by "Western" devs. Like, if we look at the most recent numbered FF game, that's a game where the character designer is an Italian fashion designer, the art style is photo-realistic, the mythology cribs from Western Christendom's greatest hits, the form of the game is an American style road trip that's got everything short of the Route 66 signs on the side of the road, and the gameplay is an action game that feels more like Legacy of Kain or Prince of Persia than an old fashioned Dragon Quest. But that's a Japanese RPG, rather than just being called a more neutral, simple, "RPG". This is to say nothing of how multicultural most dev teams are these days, where games aren't created anymore by single studios, but have large parts of the production spread out across all corners of the globe. Meanwhile we've got games like Undertale that are loving homages to the "JRPGs" of yore and even get categorized as a "JRPG" despite being made by a white guy from New Hampshire. So even if these distinctions used to be meaningful and useful, they've become almost completely meaningless in the modern gaming landscape where old genre labels are already pointless, and everyone is mixing influences from everyone else.
I don't have any great answers here for how to better do things, besides just stop obsessing about arbitrary and useless labels in general. Which makes me feel like any consternation over these labels to begin with on my part is an embarrassing waste of everyone's time. I will use the terms "JRPG" and "Western" regularly myself out of simple convenience/ease of interpersonal communication and not wanting to work myself up into a stink and get distracted any time the terms come up or get into a tisk tisk, tut tut, lecture that becomes obnoxious. And I don't blame anyone or am looking to chastise or guilt anyone for just saying what the rest of society says because that's just how things work. But it sucks and I resent it. We ought to be better than this, and it's just a continual reminder that we aren't.
imo waiting for the advent of K-RPGs
Though I do think there's value in the label as shorthand for something vaguely along the lines of "has Dragon Quest as its most influential ancestor" or "you could make it, or at least a lower spec version, in RPG Maker." The name for that genre didn't have to be JRPG and maybe could have been something better - maybe FFXV isn't a JRPG but Undertale is, as weird as that sounds - but it's the one that stuck and I'm a descriptivist not a prescriptivist. Like, 99% of all Metroidvanias are neither Metroid nor Vania, and many Metroids and Castlevanias are not Metroidvanias, and sure there are other more accurate and descriptive names for the genre, but hey it works.
Though I do think there's value in the label as shorthand for something vaguely along the lines of "has Dragon Quest as its most influential ancestor" or "you could make it, or at least a lower spec version, in RPG Maker." The name for that genre didn't have to be JRPG and maybe could have been something better - maybe FFXV isn't a JRPG but Undertale is, as weird as that sounds - but it's the one that stuck and I'm a descriptivist not a prescriptivist. Like, 99% of all Metroidvanias are neither Metroid nor Vania, and many Metroids and Castlevanias are not Metroidvanias, and sure there are other more accurate and descriptive names for the genre, but hey it works.
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
I like this game! There was a cool bear! And something to do with the moon and chains? Whatever, it was fun until there was an awful sex-shaming scene with the main female character and I was really bummed.
I have no clue what most of these acronyms mean, honestly. Like I know most people wouldn't call Skyrim a JRPG but honestly have no idea why not. The numbers aren't on the screen as much?
(removed some unnecessary stuff)
Anyway, let's all agree this unicorn bear is awesome.
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Genre names are almost as bad as food etymology when it comes to the futility of interpreting them literally. The only measure of whether a game belongs to a genre (however named) is if describing it as such would be a useful indicator of what to expect from the game.
That is, without exaggeration, the greatest unicorn bear I've ever seen.
"JRPG" describes a tradition of games that was invented, incubated, and codified in Japan. When we say a game is a JRPG we are saying that it follows in that tradition and features many of the signifying elements of that tradition. If I, cooking in Denver, make meatballs out of North Carolina pork, Texas beef, and Connecticut nutmug then I have prepared Swedish Meatballs. I could even stick little American flags in them and that still wouldn't transform them from being Swedish. So too it is with JRPGs. The name of the country is shorthand for a style; not an indicator of origin, nationality, or any particular cultural ornaments.
I think you and WH are both right. Your analogy is on the money, I think the problematic element is the differentiation between them and "Western" RPGs, and I think that term, more than anything, is where the issue lies. The term "Western" is incredibly loaded, and for good reason. The term is rife with the stink of colonialism and oppression, and the idea that "our Greco-Roman, 'Judeo'(in quotes because the term 'Judeo' does a lot of heavy lifting in the term)-Christian, Enlightenment intellectual traditions are superior to those ignorant heathens".
I am rather attached to the term "JRPG" because it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, since even though the term itself isn't that old, the feelings of nostalgia and coziness it and the games it describes evoke is real. I'm not sure if the term "JRPG" came first, but I do remember hearing it several years before "WRPG", which I think came along to differentiate the computer RPG style favored by European, Canadian and U.S. developers for decades. I really do think we need a different name. Maybe just go back to calling them Computer RPGs? Today's consoles are just reskinned computers anyways, and even though the term is every bit as murky as "JRPG", it's still one of those "I know it when I see it" scenarios (The Witcher III is definitely a CRPG, Ara Fell is definitely a JRPG). Heck, one of the reasons I created this thread is because we had one for CRPGs so why not one for JRPGs, too?
In conclusion: Let's start just calling all "WRPGs" "CRPGs" instead. Thank you, won't you?
Just call 'em Jarpegs and Wurpegs
“PC-style RPGs” and “console-style RPGs” sounds like a perfectly cromulent set of categories to me, but I admit that I am An Old.
Or this. After all, the term “roguelike” seems to work just fine. We’d just have to decide what the ur-isometric PC RPG was.
I think you mean War Pigs.
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Sarge
hardcore retro gamin'
I didn't like it as much until I went to manual attacking mode. The auto-attack just didn't feel right.
Genre terms are concepts that are driven by marketing by a significant amount and thus I feel like it's not worth getting too worked up on them. I'm not saying to avoid the labels, but taking them to a level of seriousness beyond using them as shorthand to describe a game is folly.
So I got to the ruined hospital in Blue Dragon and managed to accidentally turn of my 360 while the game was saving and now the save is corrupted. Go me.
Anyways I'm not going back through all that right away so it's time for another game. I've been wanting to play Radiant Historia and it's sitting on my 3DS so here we go.
Anyways I'm not going back through all that right away so it's time for another game. I've been wanting to play Radiant Historia and it's sitting on my 3DS so here we go.
Radiant Historia is the secret best RPG of its generation. It's an absolute master-class, and does a time travel gimmick better than Chrono Trigger.
Because our tribal instincts demand we classify things in order to understand what is good and what is dangerous in the world. And the fear of outsiders -- that's been baked into our DNA for millions of years as a communal species -- determines that we imbue our understanding of the world so thoroughly through those lenses that it's manifested in even the most mundane, insignificant, and stupid ways like how we talk about fucking video games.
It’s true that the actual, licensed D&D PC games (until BGIII) came out of North America, but for the record there are some notable European-developed CRPGS. For instance, the Divinity series came from Larian in Belgium, and the Gothic series came from a German studio.
ETA:
I had thought the Ultima games (or at least some of them) were developed in the U.S. Richard Garriott has a Texas accent, at least.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
I mean "why Western and not American". Surely they should be American RPGs if the counterpart is Japanese RPGs?Because our tribal instincts demand we classify things in order to understand what is good and what is dangerous in the world. And the fear of outsiders -- that's been baked into our DNA for millions of years as a communal species -- determines that we imbue our understanding of the world so thoroughly through those lenses that it's manifested in even the most mundane, insignificant, and stupid ways like how we talk about fucking video games.
But I wonder how much influence abbreviations had on this debate. A big reason people didn't like Console Vs Computer RPGs as labels is they both spell CRPG, which makes it a meaningless shared abbreviation that may as well just say RPG. American RPG would spell ARPG, which already stands for Action RPG, so would also create more confusion than it cured.