On western RPGs and user satisfaction, compared to JRPGs

[imweasel]

JRPGs are making a comeback IMO. The gameplay is improving and they aren't full to the brim with SJW garbage and virtue signaling as is usually the case with western RPGs these days.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

I think Western RPGs just need to take risks more. It's cool to remake the classics, but you need that innovative, spirited and youthful desire to create something *new*. Arcanum, for example, was sort of like Fallout but so much grander and more unique. Vampire - Bloodlines was like nothing at all before it or really after it, and you'll find that it was something fresh, unique and new at the time, and is now a classic CRPG. These games aren't just about choice & consequence or player agency, you need that special sauce, that insane creativity from someone extremely motivated and impassioned to make their dream game, which is usually something no one has seen before. Same with Morrowind, that game is special because it was so unique, insanely creative and took a team of insane people to make it. We need more of that, people willing to take tenets of the old-school but create new and exciting experiences, things we haven't seen much before. Not just do the usual, 3rd-person ARPG this, isometric CRPG that. We need risk takers and impassioned, creative designers. I feel we have some of that already but I'd like to see people with more resources make that jump, too, rather than just a few indie devs with a shoestring budget.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Western ?
Does that include eastern Europe too (reminder, geographic central Europe is eastern Europe too, it's called eastern because it was east of the iron curtain ) ?

Anyway, non japanese cRPG AAA fucking devs are dumbing down the genre so much they're leveling the play-field with JRPG which are somewhat maturing and improving after all the garbage they released since 3D is a JRPG standard.

JRPG devs are probably smart enough to see there's a market opening since good cRPG are scarce.

Good for us if they make it and succeed, it'll put other cRPG devs on the right tracks.

 

[Courland]

Does this overwhelming praise for JRPGs all across the board (sans the Codex) mean JRPGs are better games, or better said, they offer more quality games for the JRPG fan? Or does this mean JRPGs fans are more easily satisfiable, so even very bad game gets overrated and called a "hidden gem"? In addition, what does this say about the state of western RPGs, where most niche cRPGs end up a disappointment and the casual western RPG industry is dominated by a handful of companies (Bethesda, CD Projekt RED, BioWare)?

Honestly it depends on how you group games.

You're comparing 2 genres that share similarities but differ wildly in complexity. I could finish shit like chrono trigger or final fantasy VI when I was a child without understanding a single word of English without too much trouble. I'm certain I couldn't have finished a game like baldur's gate or NWN at the same age.
Even now if you get someone who has no experience with gaming to play baldur's gate and chrono trigger I can bet you that they would have a much easier time getting into chrono trigger than baldur's gate because the barrier to entry is that much lower.
The praise you see across the board for jrpgs is because they're a lot more accessible to plebs but that doesn't make them any good. Popular western RPGs are easily digestible games that the companies you mentioned above make (most of them are absolute garbage).
More complex games will always be a niche because a lot of people just can't be bothered to get into it.

 

[TemplarGR]

Western ?
Does that include eastern Europe too (reminder, geographic central Europe is eastern Europe too, it's called eastern because it was east of the iron curtain ) ?

Anyway, non japanese cRPG AAA fucking devs are dumbing down the genre so much they're leveling the play-field with JRPG which are somewhat maturing and improving after all the garbage they released since 3D is a JRPG standard.

JRPG devs are probably smart enough to see there's a market opening since good cRPG are scarce.

Good for us if they make it and succeed, it'll put other cRPG devs on the right tracks.

Typically, anything non Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, etc), is considered "Western", for gaming purposes.

Also, i agree that JRPG devs have been improving a lot lately. They still have a long way to go and will probably never release serious codex-approved incline, but they are surely becoming a force to be reckoned with for Western AAA devs. I tried FF XV Windows Edition recently and was impressed. I mean, it was no Witcher 3 or Skyrim, BUT, it was definitely better than anything post-PSOne they had released...

 

[Sigourn]

You're comparing 2 genres that share similarities but differ wildly in complexity. I could finish shit like chrono trigger or final fantasy VI when I was a child without understanding a single word of English without too much trouble.

User title checks out.

I'm certain I couldn't have finished a game like baldur's gate or NWN at the same age.

I agree with both statements. As a native Spanish speaker I could play and beat Pokémon without knowing English. I even played the Japanese release of Pokémon Ruby and still get into the first proper city, though admittedly it was hard to go on given the game ran poorly on my computer. Something like Baldur's Gate on the other hand cannot simply be fruteforced. Too many NPCs saying too many things, too many spells and abilities.

The more I think about it, the more I realize Skyrim, for all the shit it gets, changed how I see RPGs. Now it's less about enjoying the story and the repetitive gameplay (funny considering this is Skyrim we are talking about), and more about having some player agency and getting immersed into a world with NPCs that say more than a single bark that gets repeated throughout town ("oh no, we have been invaded"; "did you see we have been invaded?").

I really feel anime and immaturity has perverted Japanese games. The ones I'm attracted to the most (having not played them) are the ones that also appear to have the most interesting gameplay.

Western ?
Does that include eastern Europe too (reminder, geographic central Europe is eastern Europe too, it's called eastern because it was east of the iron curtain ) ?

I'd say it has to do with how you think geographically. I'm pretty sure "Western RPG" started within the JRPG community. Therefore, Western = everything west of Japan. Thus Russian RPGs are included.

 

[TemplarGR]

I am on a jrpg binge right now, and i am playing Monster Hunter World, and i got to say, japanese devs have definitely improved their shit lately... I used to play Monster Hunter on mobile devices and it was always a clunky POS, but this latest installment is a genuinely good game...

If Japan keeps improving like that and western AAA devs keep playing with their dicks like that, eventually the US dev industry will be like japan was a decade ago...

 

[Vorark]

I really feel anime and immaturity has perverted Japanese games.

It did and it's a shame such thing happened. Just compare early SMT to SMT IV: Apocalypse. The latter has a great battle system but everything else screams animu.

I think both Western and Japanese RPGs are in a weird place right now, for different reasons. On one hand, you have ideology clouding things over and systems being dumbed down to reach a wider audience; on the other, you have tired anime tropes and questionable little girl characters appealing to lonely retarded weebs (pleonasm?). Either way, both sides declined hard from the early 2000s. There are exceptions, of course, but most games on the market these days feel hollow.

It's not all bad news, though. The Japanese are still masters of action combat, so there's that at the very least, and one can hope the moe/loli phase will go away. Besides, in the last two to three years, Europe seems to be picking up the RPG mantle so who knows? Eurojank might be a thing of the past. What is certain is the NA market is fucked up until their games go back to being just videogames instead of a retarded political platform.

 

[Pots Talos]

I tried FF XV Windows Edition recently and was impressed. I mean, it was no Witcher 3 or Skyrim, BUT, it was definitely better than anything post-PSOne they had released...

But FFXV made the combat two buttons, hold A to attack everything or Hold X to evade everything. Was still more enjoyable than FF XIII though I guess.

 

[mushaden]

I love using JRPGs, been doing it for years.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Does this overwhelming praise for JRPGs all across the board (sans the Codex) mean JRPGs are better games, or better said, they offer more quality games for the JRPG fan? Or does this mean JRPGs fans are more easily satisfiable, so even very bad game gets overrated and called a "hidden gem"?

Honestly, I don't play many JRPG's. Never really been my thing, aside from obvious ones like Dark Souls. But aside from a few notable standout franchises, my impression is that they're basically shonen ecchi anime translated to the ultimate self-insert format. In other words, generally shit taste is happy to taste shit. So to answer your questions... both?

In addition, what does this say about the state of western RPGs, where most niche cRPGs end up a disappointment and the casual western RPG industry is dominated by a handful of companies (Bethesda, CD Projekt RED, BioWare)?

Western RPG's are in a bad state. First off, I wouldn't even include BioWare in that conversation. They haven't done anything since Origins, and aside from the current gen console hype train that propped up the temple to mediocrity known as Inquisition, casual gamers haven't really been all that impressed either.

People love to complain about Bethesda. People have always loved to complain about Bethesda. 'Member when Morrowind came out and all the Daggerfall fans flipped a shit, and even one of the Morrowind devs did an interview shitting on Bethesda for not doing Daggerfall 2? I 'member. It's the same old story with every release: Redguard was shit (well, it wasn't an RPG, but it wasn't shit); Oblivion was shit; Skyrim was shit. And despite it all, they're known as the biggest RPG titan in the industry. I think that's a well-deserved title... until you hit Fallout 4, that is. If Bethesda doesn't turn Star Citizen into something incredible, then in the short term, we have to hope CDPR hits Cyberpunk out of the park. If both Bethesda and CDPR can't pull it off, then we are left with a bunch of smaller and indie developers who consistently make half-baked disappointments based on cool concepts.

So what happens if they fuck it up? I guess we just need to pray that Outer Worlds is the dopest thing ever. It won't be a mega hit, because it's a new IP, but if it's legit, then Obsidian will have finally clawed its way into the real mainstream. If the worst-case scenario happens, and all these games end up being miserable, then somebody will eventually fill the void. People love RPGs.

BUT!

Going back to the dichotomy between Western RPG versus JRPG fanbases... the western audience is a lot harder to please. We think they know what we want. Every small developer thinks he knows exactly how to finally please all the RPG fans. But it just doesn't happen. Why? Because we all want different stuff in our games. We pretend that RPG is a singular genre, and are invariably disappointed when all the myriad kinds of RPGs don't give us exactly the special blend of herbs and spices that suits our individual palettes.

So, a mixture of dumbass developers with poor vision and an un-pleasable fanbase puts western RPGs in limbo. Here's to hoping for good times ahead.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Skyrim is not "dumbed down".

Oh, poor you.

 

[laclongquan]

This statement is objectively false because I played Chrono Trigger, and while it was an enjoyable adventure game, it definitely wasn't an RPG.

Is that a troll post or what? By any definition of RPG around here Chrono Trigger is one.

Please say YOUR definition that lead you to think CT is not a RPG.

Just so we could laugh at you.

 

[JarlFrank]

This statement is objectively false because I played Chrono Trigger, and while it was an enjoyable adventure game, it definitely wasn't an RPG.

Is that a troll post or what? By any definition of RPG around here Chrono Trigger is one.

Please say YOUR definition that lead you to think CT is not a RPG.

Just so we could laugh at you.

- no character creation
- leveling up gives you specific bonuses for each character, you don't get to spend points at levelup yourself
- dialogs are completely static cutscenes, you don't get to pick your responses, not even fake choices, just linear cutscenes
- every character has specific abilities, rather than you being able to develop your party into the direction you want

Yeah it barely qualifies, even Wizardry 1 had stronger RPG gameplay than that.

It is a good action adventure game though.

 

[RapineDel]

I think Western RPGs just need to take risks more. It's cool to remake the classics, but you need that innovative, spirited and youthful desire to create something *new*. Arcanum, for example, was sort of like Fallout but so much grander and more unique. Vampire - Bloodlines was like nothing at all before it or really after it, and you'll find that it was something fresh, unique and new at the time, and is now a classic CRPG. These games aren't just about choice & consequence or player agency, you need that special sauce, that insane creativity from someone extremely motivated and impassioned to make their dream game, which is usually something no one has seen before. Same with Morrowind, that game is special because it was so unique, insanely creative and took a team of insane people to make it. We need more of that, people willing to take tenets of the old-school but create new and exciting experiences, things we haven't seen much before. Not just do the usual, 3rd-person ARPG this, isometric CRPG that. We need risk takers and impassioned, creative designers. I feel we have some of that already but I'd like to see people with more resources make that jump, too, rather than just a few indie devs with a shoestring budget.

Gothic was one of these as well. If Gothic didn't exist and was presented on paper it would sound like a terribly dumbed down action RPG and while it may be lacking in certain traditional RPG areas it makes up for it by being the absoloute best at what it focuses on (its open world and atmosphere).

Too many new RPGs, especially by Obsidian and Inxile feel like they're ticking off a checklist of things to appease old fans rather then having a key focus, something to make the game special. They're like an old rock band trying to recreate the glory days and it just results in a poorer version of what we've already heard.

 

[Sigourn]

- no character creation
- leveling up gives you specific bonuses for each character, you don't get to spend points at levelup yourself
- dialogs are completely static cutscenes, you don't get to pick your responses, not even fake choices, just linear cutscenes
- every character has specific abilities, rather than you being able to develop your party into the direction you want

Yeah it barely qualifies, even Wizardry 1 had stronger RPG gameplay than that.

I agree that it is not an RPG. Same thing why I feel like pretty much all Final Fantasies past Final Fantasy 1 aren't RPGs. A possible exception being Final Fantasy XII: International Zodiac Job System, as it does let you pick a class. And the reason I say Final Fantasy and not something like Final Fantasy V is because, in spite of its class system, you can change at will your class in Final Fantasy V. And only as the game progresses you start unlocking classes, whereas every class is available from the start in Final Fantasy, and what happens is "progressing" through the class. There's also a degree of customization when it comes to spells: you cannot learn all spells in Final Fantasy IIRC, you can only buy a handful per spell level. Maybe I'm wrong.

Ultimately I think people call any JRPG an RPG because they have stats and levels. People like seeing them numbers go up.

 

[Karellen]

- no character creation
- leveling up gives you specific bonuses for each character, you don't get to spend points at levelup yourself
- dialogs are completely static cutscenes, you don't get to pick your responses, not even fake choices, just linear cutscenes
- every character has specific abilities, rather than you being able to develop your party into the direction you want

Yeah it barely qualifies, even Wizardry 1 had stronger RPG gameplay than that.

It is a good action adventure game though.

Talking about arbitrary semantics may be futile, but this seems like another (although somewhat more justified) example of constraining the definition of RPG in such a way as to exclude JRPGs. Which is fair, but I think it's unhelpful because for all practical purposes, definitions created in this way tend to obfuscate rather than elucidate the things that make RPGs good, fun, interesting and distinctive. I also think it's confused, because it is in contradiction with what is unambiguously the original measure of RPGs, that is to say, actual pen and paper games. There are plenty of Pen and Paper RPGs that do not involve character customization - hell, the original Dungeons & Dragons had barely any whatsoever - or even character growth through experience. More importantly, it is quite common to play PnP RPGs with pre-generated characters, and it should be obvious that playing with pregens does not in any way change the nature of the core activity, that being the actual roleplaying, which unfortunately cannot be replicated without the participation of a human game master.

In any case, Chrono Trigger is a great game and certainly not an action-adventure game, as it has nothing like an action component. I don't particularly care whether the game qualifies as an RPG or not (since the so-called "RPG elements" aren't really integral to PnP RPGs anyway), but I do think that Western RPGs could learn something from the process of development that JRPGs, as a genre, have gone through; for better or worse, the Japanese RPG in its various subgenres has essentially been pruned and narrowed down in its focus to specific elements reminiscent of RPGs that actually work in video games, while in the Western RPG this has been more of a process of dumbing down rather than specialisation. Now, the Western RPG shouldn't go the route of JRPGs (that probably results in something like Bioware games), but it's important to get away from this kind of "but it doesn't have this or that feature!" kind of thinking, when the key thing is whether those things are (or even can be) done well.

 

[Machocruz]

Average gamer reacts emotionally too things, just like any primitive. JRPGs are more likely to court emotional engagement through well worn storytelling tactics, however childish. Not this is exclusive to JRPGs, look at The Witcher 3, it's accolades are based on appealing to feels, not because of its systems; and Japan puts out games that are dryly systemic. Why do you think the hipster gold standard for games becoming valid "art" is whether or not they will be able to make you cry? There are more emotional people playing games, especially consoles, than there are cerebral. And the bar for emotional engagement in entertainment isn't very high, people are moved by facile sentiment. A lot of JRPGs provide this. The ones that aren't warm and fuzzy, like SMT3: Nocturne, which I think is as good as any JRPG that's ever been, aren't held in the same regard by this type of person.

Failing emotional engagement of that sort, LARPing and virtual tourism is just as good, or judging by the sales of Bethesda games, better.

 

[Machocruz]

- no character creation
- leveling up gives you specific bonuses for each character, you don't get to spend points at levelup yourself
- dialogs are completely static cutscenes, you don't get to pick your responses, not even fake choices, just linear cutscenes
- every character has specific abilities, rather than you being able to develop your party into the direction you want

Yeah it barely qualifies, even Wizardry 1 had stronger RPG gameplay than that.

It is a good action adventure game though.

There are plenty of Pen and Paper RPGs that do not involve character customization - hell, the original Dungeons & Dragons had barely any whatsoever - or even character growth through experience. More importantly, it is quite common to play PnP RPGs with pre-generated characters, and it should be obvious that playing with pregens does not in any way change the nature of the core activity, that being the actual roleplaying, which unfortunately cannot be replicated without the participation of a human game master.

In any case, Chrono Trigger is a great game and certainly not an action-adventure game, as it has nothing like an action component.

The bolded argument is made quite often in defense JRPGs and games like The Witcher and it's utterly boring protagonist, but what is missed is that, unlike video games with pre-selected MCs, you get to choose from a selection of pre-generated characters, at least in all of my experiences. I've never been forced to take a Cloud, a Chrono, or a Geralt. You also get to choose how to express the pre-generated character; there are no script writers or voice actors doing this for you. My expression of a Lawful Good paladin may be different from a hundred other people's. Unfortunately, to play in Geralt's world (or with CDPR's rule-set, if we're thinking in PnP terms), you only get Geralt. This is why I wait until Cyberpunk to make judgment of CDPR's abilities as RPG developers.

But anyway I agree about CT, if only because of the limitations of video games and video game genres; even a cosmetic and lightly systemic facsimile of the source material (i.e. PnP RPGs) is enough to place a game like Chrono Trigger (and other traditional JRPGs) within the genre, for where else could it go? You have the character sheet with the statistical information, a group of adventurers, XP, level ups, hit point. Regardless of whether these Jap devs have even played a tabletop RPG, there is a lineage of emulating previous video games, all the way back to Wizardry, which was trying to emulate PnP games, flat-out. There is no where else for it to go besides the strategy genre, and it's an even worse example of that. Instead of calling it "not RPG", I just call it a superficial one.

 

[Vlajdermen]

GameFaqs

Let me tell you about Gamefaqs. That site is infested with weeaboos, fanboys and similar swine.
I wasted my share of brain cells there, and whenever I'd criticize jrpgs (most commonly persona 5 and nu-pokemon), I'd always get that "games are completely subjective" shit thrown my way. That may sound like a valid point, but you could use the same logic to defend the Emoji Movie, or any form of shitty media. Equating persona 5 to something like Fallout is like equating Black Veil Brides to Iron Maiden, or Sonichu to Watchmen.

TL;DR gamefaqs' opinions are not to be valued.

 

[Sigourn]

Let me tell you about Gamefaqs. That site is infested with weeaboos, fanboys and similar untermenschen.
I wasted my share of brain cells there, and whenever I'd criticize jrpgs (most commonly persona 5 and nu-pokemon), I'd always get that "games are completely subjective" shit thrown my way. That may sound like a valid point, but you could use the same logic to defend the Emoji Movie, or any form of shitty media. Equating persona 5 to something like Fallout is like equating Black Veil Brides to Iron Maiden, or Sonichu to Watchmen.

TL;DR gamefaqs' opinions are not to be valued.

The same can be said about the Codex: JRPGs are called shit, and cRPGs are the best thing ever. The best thing is to listen to the arguments. In that regard, while I can't say I enjoy many cRPGs, I can definitely say I'm against pretty much everything JRPGs stand for, with the exception that good music should be encouraged.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It's because the western RPG market was hollowed out by the MMO goldrush. JRPGs never suffered that same fate, instead they retreated to handhelds for awhile.

While Bioware was pushing games to be all about cinematics and spectacle, JRPGs were doing what people on this board have been clamoring for for years: making older-style games with good but not bank-breaking graphics.

Now we have the CRPG renaissance (inxile, obsidian, etc) but they seem to have lost their fastball.

Perhaps Outer Worlds will save us.

 

[mondblut]

Or does this mean JRPGs fans are more easily satisfiable, so even very bad game gets overrated and called a "hidden gem"?

You can sell them a rotting fish if you add pink-colored spiked hair to it. And claim it has a secret and tragic past.

 

[Machocruz]

On a side note, I don't believe thinking terms of "old school" is very helpful. It ties game design to time rather than quality, so that idiots can come along and say things like "turn based is only cuz teknical limits bruh." Which is objectively false, btw (hello Dungeon Master. Hello 80s actionRPGs). You don't make turn based because it's old school, you do it because it's the best thing for group combat, unless your game is a cakewalk. The problem with AAA RPGs isn't because they're not old school, it's because the designers aren't familiar with or don't care about trying to emulate tabletop depth/complexity. Isometric isn't old school, it's the best tactical vantage point for group combat; for some reason that's understood and accepted by the masses when it comes to the strategy genre, but god forbid an RPG isn't behind the back or first-person. Immersionfags gonna immersionfag

 

[TemplarGR]

You can sell them a rotting fish if you add pink-colored spiked hair to it. And claim it has a secret and tragic past.

This is true for a large part of jrpg fanbase. Remember not every idiot plays a game for the same reasons... There are many anime-loving faggots and furies who just play jrpgs for the artstyle and totally gay storylines, not for the gameplay...

I on the other hand can only barely stand anime, and i only play jrpgs is their gameplay is at least enjoyable and the story not completely retarded, for example Suikoden I & II...