Grauken
Gourd vibes only
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2013
- Messages
- 12,787
Didn't saw a topic on this and since it's such a hefty tome trying to give an overview of the entire genre I thought we needed one
This is a bit fashioned after felipepepe CRPG book, though it doesn't offer the entries chronologically (which I would have preferred) and instead goes for major series first and then sorts the rest of the games by subgenre, which makes for an awkward order and if you need to find a specific game you need the index (with the CRPG book I could just hone in on the time frame)
It has one glaring flaw which is that none of the contributors is mentioned with a byline on any of the articles and reviews which I think was the wrong choice. Personally, I've only read a couple of reviews but expect to see a lot "this is outdated" and "that is outdated and thank you they don't do this anymore" on reviews of older titles. Sadly without bylines, I can't see who is responsible for that
I assume they hide bylines because by and large this is probably written 70% by Kalata (the Hardcore 101 guy) alone and they didn't want to show how much just came from him
Also expect not to see any references, especially the article tracing the roots of jRPGs mention games and how important they were but no mentions where this information is coming from which makes it mostly useless for historical research since you don't know what that is based on. There's also the odd omission of Black Onyx which in its own review just a couple of pages later is mentioned as one of the most important games for jRPGs early on
https://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/a-guide-to-japanese-role-playing-games
This is a bit fashioned after felipepepe CRPG book, though it doesn't offer the entries chronologically (which I would have preferred) and instead goes for major series first and then sorts the rest of the games by subgenre, which makes for an awkward order and if you need to find a specific game you need the index (with the CRPG book I could just hone in on the time frame)
It has one glaring flaw which is that none of the contributors is mentioned with a byline on any of the articles and reviews which I think was the wrong choice. Personally, I've only read a couple of reviews but expect to see a lot "this is outdated" and "that is outdated and thank you they don't do this anymore" on reviews of older titles. Sadly without bylines, I can't see who is responsible for that
I assume they hide bylines because by and large this is probably written 70% by Kalata (the Hardcore 101 guy) alone and they didn't want to show how much just came from him
Also expect not to see any references, especially the article tracing the roots of jRPGs mention games and how important they were but no mentions where this information is coming from which makes it mostly useless for historical research since you don't know what that is based on. There's also the odd omission of Black Onyx which in its own review just a couple of pages later is mentioned as one of the most important games for jRPGs early on
https://www.bitmapbooks.co.uk/products/a-guide-to-japanese-role-playing-games