On western RPGs and user satisfaction, compared to JRPGs

[Funposter]

An RPG (videogame) is a type of videogame where the human controls a player avatar through indirect means and strengthens the character prodecurally through character progression and items, to guide him through a story inside a certain world.

 

[Raghar]

JRPG are RPG made in Japan. Action adventures are games with stats and action combat. RPG are games that have lot of text, and require some logical thinking based on information found in that text.

Just because a lot of them were made in certain style, and some Japanese companies tried to use the same style for sequels, doesn't mean it's a genre. If it was a genre, Square Enix wouldn't be throwing 110 millions and 10 years of development into developing open world RPG that would work on CONSOLES. But, of course for Japanese developers, money milking and user milking was important. Consoles allowed them to have user base that was not allowed playing without paying.

As a consequence, a lot of Japanese games were made to 1. cope with RAM and CPU restrictions on console. 2. were made for supposedly dumb Japanese "young" audience. Then Japanese companies self-perpetuated misconceptions in what theirs audience wants.

So yea, when I invented a procedurally generated game environments over 10 years ago. Auto generated buildings and furniture placed in sensible way, properly looking hills, correctly looking city. And I did only because one person simply can't do all that work, especially when it likes to make freeware, or noncomercial research. Japanese on the other hand didn't spend as much time to create something computer generated, they spend horrible time and resources by doing most of stuff by hand. And that folks is a difference between competent developer, and Japanese developer.

Could Japanese developers make complex games with lots of text, and still be able to run it on mere console? Harvest moon was relatively complex game that ran on console. Mana Khemia had QUITE complex item making. And characters were interesting. Star Ocean 1 - 4 had great skill and crafting systems. Yakuza was and still is a work of passion completely comparable to work of old "western" developers. I'd say part of problems of Japanese developers is the whole Japanese country. Living in overcrowded cities, not visiting forests on daily basis, why would they create a game that has large open world? They don't have experience with large open world outside window of a train.



Anyway. We should make differences between old developers. These who wanted to make theirs PnP RPG experience on PCs, and were willing to develop systems properly. And new people who seen big AA games and wanna earn as much money as possible.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

RPG are games that have lot of text, and require some logical thinking based on information found in that text.

RPGs might (and ideally should) have a lot of text, but it isn't necessary. RPGs require three things:

(1) some kind of class system
(2) the class you choose affects gameplay by making your character better at some things and worse at others
(3) freedom in how you approach the narrative

And that's it. Old school tabletop games started it, and video games continue it. With those things, it's an RPG. Without those things, it's not an RPG. You can add other things to further narrow down the variety of RPG.

 

[JarlFrank]

Roleplay is not starting with movies. It start first with stories when some old grizzled veterans tell at campfires with the teller maybe act it out and listeners immerse themselves in that. If the whippersnappers want to change details like the correct skills of main character, or change the dialog between MC and other char, either the teller or other listeners will snarl him down~

Then it advanced with stories on writing materials. Then movies.

Like it or not, jRPG follow the oldest definition of ropleplay, fun or not.

The fun thing about oral history is that details are often different between different groups of storytellers. We can see the proof of that in the ancient myths that have been written down, be it Sumerian and Akkadian, Greek, or Norse. There are several versions of the same myths, written down by different people in different locations, and the details are slightly different. Gilgamesh is a great example: there are many stories about this great hero, and even when archaeologists find tablets containing a story that is already known from other sources, it will have minor details that differ from the already known versions.

Why? Because oral storytelling lends itself perfectly to putting your own spin on a story. Heck, often it was even politically motivated - your own village gets a larger role in the tale than it originally had, but everyone cheers you on as you tell the story because they like that new detail.

So no, when a storyteller changed the story, he wasn't snarled down by the listeners. He was cheered on because the listeners got to hear a version of the story they hadn't heard before, which made it much more exciting to listen to.

Therefore, JRPGs are much further from the "oldest definition of roleplay", as you call it, than western RPGs.

Hey look someone even wrote a paper on the differences in the extant versions of Gilgamesh:
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Examining-the-Different-Versions-of-Epic-of-FKCK8FFBZRPA

 

[Theldaran]

Well Japan keeps shoveling JRPG for every platform (maybe save the Xbox), while in the West we've had some times of scarcity. Does that explain it?

I mean, the whole output of shovelware company Idea Factory (Neptunia) (which is a lot) puts to shame the production of the West in like the last 2 decades.

 

[Karellen]

Roleplay is not starting with movies. It start first with stories when some old grizzled veterans tell at campfires with the teller maybe act it out and listeners immerse themselves in that. If the whippersnappers want to change details like the correct skills of main character, or change the dialog between MC and other char, either the teller or other listeners will snarl him down~

Then it advanced with stories on writing materials. Then movies.

Like it or not, jRPG follow the oldest definition of ropleplay, fun or not.

The fun thing about oral history is that details are often different between different groups of storytellers. We can see the proof of that in the ancient myths that have been written down, be it Sumerian and Akkadian, Greek, or Norse. There are several versions of the same myths, written down by different people in different locations, and the details are slightly different. Gilgamesh is a great example: there are many stories about this great hero, and even when archaeologists find tablets containing a story that is already known from other sources, it will have minor details that differ from the already known versions.

This step towards the origin of RPGs is actually a pretty fun twist in the otherwise frequently tedious "What is an RPG" discussion, particularly since for once it brings us to the territory of what PnP RPGs are, which needless to say is a divisive question in the relevant online communities. Interestingly, identifying storytelling as the origin of RPGs would definitely get you labeled as storygaming swine at theRPGSite, which is (probably) the closest thing to an RPGCodex in the PnP roleplaying world.

In a historical context, the proper analogy for RPGs isn't really oral storytelling. The reason for this is that a storyteller, whether he modifies his tale or not, is trying to tell the most entertaining story to his audience. This is explicitly not the goal in roleplaying, where a player is guided by two other concerns that are at least equally important: what would be the advantageous thing for the character to do and, finally, what would the character want to do in this situation. To do these things, one has to immerse oneself in the character, and so if there is something that resembles RPGs that's existed for thousands of years other than plain old make-believe, it would be things like ritual re-enactments, ceremonial plays and such. In such things, much like in roleplaying games, the player doesn't play for the audience, but is himself the audience, and the purpose of the whole exercise is to experience the things being re-enacted or played out in the ceremony.

This analogy is pretty interesting for JRPGs, because in a re-enactment the actors don't necessarily have a lot of freedom in their role, yet taking part still feels like, well, being a participant. I think that insofar as JRPGs can genuinely be said to be RPGs, it would be because their purpose is to immerse the player in a particular character and experience what they experience. It's obviously not the real thing - that is to say, a PnP RPG - but I guess what I'm saying is that they can and frequently do accomplish something RPG-like. It's also a method that computers can handle reasonably well. This is probably why, as far as C&C goes, I tend to prefer the type you find in Wing Commander (and, incidentally, a fair amount of JRPGs) - having a fixed character for whom you get to make narratively significant choices at specific points, usually when the character could go with any of the options, thus (briefly) sharing in the doubt and uncertainty the character would experience at that juncture.

 

[sser]

My own observation is that a lot of WRPG devs try very hard to rope in consumers who don't even buy into the genre to begin with.

 

[FeelTheRads]

My own observation is that a lot of WRPG devs try very hard to rope in consumers who don't even buy into the genre to begin with.

Well, yes, most "RPGs" are not made for RPG players. Been like that for a long time.

Do not believe anyone who says they're an RPG player without some proof. Most people actually think they're playing RPGs when what they're doing is reading Bioware dating-sims.

Seriously, RPG must be the most raped genre in existence.

 

[laclongquan]

Roleplay is not starting with movies. It start first with stories when some old grizzled veterans tell at campfires with the teller maybe act it out and listeners immerse themselves in that. If the whippersnappers want to change details like the correct skills of main character, or change the dialog between MC and other char, either the teller or other listeners will snarl him down~

Then it advanced with stories on writing materials. Then movies.

Like it or not, jRPG follow the oldest definition of ropleplay, fun or not.

The fun thing about oral history is that details are often different between different groups of storytellers.

Funny you should saying that. It's like a game that was made by a company for different markets can be different too... Oh wait, they can. See Romance of Three Kingdom X for PS2 and for PC (Chinese/Korean/Japan).

Funny you should saying that. It's like series game that was made by different companies can be different too... Oh wait they can. See Fallout 3 and Fallout New Vegas.

 

[LordofSyn]

RPGs might (and ideally should) have a lot of text, but it isn't necessary. RPGs require three things:

(1) some kind of class system
(2) the class you choose affects gameplay by making your character better at some things and worse at others
(3) freedom in how you approach the narrative

And that's it. Old school tabletop games started it, and video games continue it. With those things, it's an RPG. Without those things, it's not an RPG. You can add other things to further narrow down the variety of RPG.

This. 100%

Sent from my LGLS996 using Tapatalk

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Because oral storytelling lends itself perfectly to putting your own spin on a story. Heck, often it was even politically motivated - your own village gets a larger role in the tale than it originally had, but everyone cheers you on as you tell the story because they like that new detail.

The old oral histories were passed down word for word as accurately as possible. The stories weren't just for fun -- they were the essence of culture and religion, and needed preservation without writing. Embellishments strike me more as a proxy of tribalism and beating your own chest opposed to playing a game.

The natural and historical origin of RPG's is children playing pretend as part of the natural way we develop -> let's play army man, let's play cops and robbers, let's play super hero, let's play house, let's play doctor, etc. Kids play RPGs all the time -- they set up the rules (we are in a doctor's office) and the classes (I am the doctor, you are the patient, and suzy is the receptionist) and then they go to town. Anything can happen. Tabletop RPG's are sophisticated, guided versions of these same kinds of games. Modern video game RPGs are conceptually no different.

 

[adrix89]

"What is the nature of RPGs?"

Are we going through this endless debate again?

The topic at hand was if JRPGs are more satisfying for their audience then Western RPGs.
Given the linear story and anime tropes I would say they satisfy their audience, they have options for any type of gameplay, dungeon crawling, tactics, roguelikes, action, puzzles, porn.
Western RPGs had some success for the mass audience although Bioware is doomed and Bethesda is increasingly more dumbed down and pathetic. Fortunately CDPR carries the torch on that front.
The Kickstarter Reinesince has been disappointing and it's clear it lost its soul. It has been average at best and I don't think many will ever replay them.
The cRPG audience hasn't been all that satisfied.

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

My own observation is that a lot of WRPG devs try very hard to rope in consumers who don't even buy into the genre to begin with.

This is probably the biggest difference I see between WRPGs and JRPGs. Most WRPG devs are trying to cater to as wide an audience as possible while JRPG devs keep spinning out stuff for a niche population. There are exceptions on both sides, but the majority would fall into this.

 

[Darth Canoli]

"What is the nature of RPGs?"

Are we going through this endless debate again?

I believe the right phrasing is : "What can change the nature of a cRPG ?"

 

[Machocruz]

The natural and historical origin of RPG's is children playing pretend as part of the natural way we develop -> let's play army man, let's play cops and robbers, let's play super hero, let's play house, let's play doctor, etc. Kids play RPGs all the time -- they set up the rules (we are in a doctor's office) and the classes (I am the doctor, you are the patient, and suzy is the receptionist) and then they go to town. Anything can happen. Tabletop RPG's are sophisticated, guided versions of these same kinds of games. Modern video game RPGs are conceptually no different.

Quite. Also there is a performance aspect, personal expression that is allowed in actual role play. That's why the statement "well you play a role in every game" is bunkum. No, in most games you just control a game pawn, a glorified version of the shoe in Monopoly. It's the script writers, voice actors, and animators that get to express the character's manner and personality. If I got to role-play Mario, he wouldn't have a faggy voice, because I don't see "Italian plumber" and think "yeah, sound like Italian castrati opera singer prolly." The video games that allow any significant player expression in all aspects of the character are few. That's why we allow other qualities, like cosmetic presentation, to determine what belongs in the video RPG space.

 

[Azarkon]

what would the character want to do in this situation

Indeed, this is called roleplaying.

what would be the advantageous thing for the character to do

Indeed, this is called gaming.

This analogy is pretty interesting for JRPGs, because in a re-enactment the actors don't necessarily have a lot of freedom in their role, yet taking part still feels like, well, being a participant.

Whether the purpose is theater, ritual, training, make pretend, or because you're an attention whore, roleplaying boils down to two processes: interpret and perform. The former is used to understand the role, and the latter is used to act it out. The closest modern profession is probably acting. However, in JRPGs you don't act. The character acts for you. It is therefore dumb fuck to argue that JRPGs are better at roleplaying than Western CRPGs. Neither are particularly great at it, but arguing that JRPGs are closer to the original form of roleplaying because "story telling," is to miss the actor for the audience. Brad Pitt is roleplaying in Fight Club. You, the audience, are not. Thus, JRPGs where all you do is watch a teenage spaz go through a psychological break down on his way to the power of friendship don't actually have any roleplaying. They're just tactical strategy games with a focus on story presentation.

The reason any of this is confusing at all is because even the original Western CRPGs don't feature much roleplaying, and you could easily argue that roleplaying is a poor description of the game component of the genre. Roleplaying games emerged as a special branch of tactical strategy games. Gary Gygax was a tactical strategy games fan. It would not be inaccurate to say that the entire genre of roleplaying games should just be named "tactical strategy games," and that we're not actually roleplaying game fans, but strategy game fans. That would make tremendously more sense, in many respects, because there is a huge amount of overlap between the two genres and, more often than not, people who are attracted to roleplaying games will also be attracted to other strategy games because they have very similar game mechanic appeals. That is certainly the case for me.

However, the term "roleplaying" stuck because there was a belief that Dungeons and Dragons nerds actually dressed up as elves and wizards and pretended they were their characters. This performative aspect was, indeed, roleplaying as defined, and it became associated with roleplaying games, an association that continues to this day. But the digital version of roleplaying games are so devoid of this component that they might as well be treated as tactical strategy games with story, which is especially the case with JRPGs, most of which are so removed from the performative aspect of roleplaying that they don't fit any of the conditions.

You want to see the roleplaying component in its polished form, go watch Critical Role. There's a reason why actors and voice actors are the most suited to the activity - because their entire profession is roleplaying so it's what they're best at. But the game aspect, which is how most people enjoy the genre? That's a different story altogether, and one that we could claim to be experts in.

 

[Azarkon]

One additional thought: technically, "roleplaying" includes the concept of "roleplaying yourself," which is what most people actually do in Western CRPGs. The video games with the best "roleplaying" components, in my opinion, are those that invite you to "roleplay yourself" in challenging situations in other people's shoes. At the end of the day, we feel much stronger about choices we would've made in the same situation, than those we think a pretend character would've made, and in the absence of an audience for which to perform, it is the definition of "roleplaying" that makes the most sense.

In fact, this is what kids do when they play games like "cow boys and Indians"; they're not thinking about what Indians and cow boys would actually do, they're giving themselves the powers and responsibilities of those roles, and then playing it out according to their own personalities. It's a type of wish fulfillment, a power fantasy, and that's what single player "roleplaying" ultimately boils down to. It's also why JRPGs fail at the "roleplaying" component, but Japanese visual novels often do much better, insofar as the main character is a stand in for the player and the player gets to decide what happens.

 

[Thonius]

Problem : Weebs are gonna eat every shitty anime jrpg and call it masterpiece, and at the same time badmouth proper WRPG.
Analyze: Who plays animu JRPG? Weebs!
Solution: Course of action? Ignore weebs and people with anime avatars ( even if it's kinda anime style but not anime per se )

Spoiler

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Analyze: Who plays animu JRPG? Weebs!
Solution: Course of action? Ignore weebs and people with anime avatars ( even if it's kinda anime style but not anime per day)

Pretty sure that average people play soulsbourne, final fantasy, kingdom hearts, pokémon, nier automata, devil may cry, and others.

 

[Sigourn]

Analyze: Who plays animu JRPG? Weebs!
Solution: Course of action? Ignore weebs and people with anime avatars ( even if it's kinda anime style but not anime per day)

Pretty sure that average people play soulsbourne, final fantasy, kingdom hearts, pokémon, nier automata, devil may cry, and others.

Soulsbourne aren't JRPGs.

Spoiler

jk. But there are three kinds of people who hate JRPGs:

1. Those who hate them because of their gameplay.
2. Those who hate them because of their aesthetic and tropes.
   
3. Those who hate them because of both.

Dark Souls is one of the few non-anime looking JRPGs.

 

[Karellen]

The reason any of this is confusing at all is because even the original Western CRPGs don't feature much roleplaying, and you could easily argue that roleplaying is a poor description of the game component of the genre. Roleplaying games emerged as a special branch of tactical strategy games. Gary Gygax was a tactical strategy games fan. It would not be inaccurate to say that the entire genre of roleplaying games should just be named "tactical strategy games," and that we're not actually roleplaying game fans, but strategy game fans. That would make tremendously more sense, in many respects, because there is a huge amount of overlap between the two genres and, more often than not, people who are attracted to roleplaying games will also be attracted to other strategy games because they have very similar game mechanic appeals. That is certainly the case for me.

I don't really disagree a whole lot with any of that. That said, though I am very much a fan of these "tactical strategy games", I am also a fan of roleplaying games, with which I suppose I primarily mean PnP games. So while it is a futile thing, by and large, I do find it interesting to consider to what extent computer games can do some of the things that PnP games do. The thing about JRPGs is that they obviously do very little, but they're still fun for some reason, so figuring out what it is they do exactly is an interesting question to me. I think that players probably do feel greater immersion as, say, Cloud Strife, because they spend hours playing as the character, even if the character is mostly outside player control in cutscenes. Then again, that's even more true for a game like Resident Evil, so go figure.

Gygax, incidentally, was certainly a wargamer, and he didn't care a great deal for thespian antics, but the games he played fall clearly outside the rubric of conventional strategy games too. The games Gygax himself ran, to the best of my knowledge, were deadly, high-tension dungeon crawls with an emphasis on navigation (players had to draw their own map based on Gygax's narration) and devious traps. What stands out as the emphasis of his games was carefully probing the gameworld for information to come up with creative, safe solutions to problems (alas, another thing that computer games can't really handle). If you asked me where the "roleplaying" comes in, I'd say that compared to actual strategy games, there's a strong identification between the player and the character; no one particularly cares if their toy soldiers die in a strategy game, whereas in an RPG, not wanting to die is very much the point. Roleplaying is there to create and nurture that identification, but without the "game" part, you're really just engaging in make-believe; it's only when you combine both that you get genuine tension, so both elements are eminently desirable.

In any case, semantics and theory aside, I'm firmly in the camp that neither cRPGs or JRPGs are capable of genuinely doing the things that distinguish PnP RPGs from, say, board games, so aspiring to the status of a "real RPG" is kind of pointless. What they can do, though, is try to accomplish some of the same effects in a different way that works on computers. What I've tried to say in this thread, I guess, is that cRPGs could really benefit from getting over trying to be like PnP games, as not only is it impossible to reach the goal with current technology, but trying very hard anyway has tended to result in mediocre and flawed games. If there's something good about JRPGs, it's that they've already gotten over that and are doing their own thing, and I think cRPGs would be better off doing the same.

 

[Cross]

I doubt I'll ever see a western RPG as precisely and meticulously constructed as Valkyria Chronicles, but I'm certain it won't happen without a re-examination of what cRPGs should aspire to be.

Valkyria Chronicles is a game where:

• it's practically impossible to lose (as long as you station your tank's back against a wall where their radiator can't be hit), since fallen squad members can be resurrected at no cost and you have a limitless supply of health kits and ammo;
• the enemies are artificially gimped to an extreme degree (e.g. enemy units are not allowed to act more than twice during a phase, whereas there is no restriction on how many times your units can act);
• a ranking system punishes you for engaging in the core gameplay, reducing the XP and money you receive the longer you take to complete a mission, regardless of how well you play.

That's your idea of a "precisely and meticulously constructed" RPG? A lot of cRPGs have some mechanics that are unbalanced or not implemented as well as they could, but that's generally the result of having a wide scope. Valkyria Chronicles' scope on the other hand couldn't be smaller, consisting only of a linear series of combat maps, yet it still manages to be a mess of haphazard design decisions. The same is true for a lot of other jrpgs.

 

[Thonius]

Analyze: Who plays animu JRPG? Weebs!
Solution: Course of action? Ignore weebs and people with anime avatars ( even if it's kinda anime style but not anime per day)

Pretty sure that average people play soulsbourne, final fantasy, kingdom hearts, pokémon, nier automata, devil may cry, and others.

Half of those slashers action games with sone small rpg element's.

 

[Karellen]

I doubt I'll ever see a western RPG as precisely and meticulously constructed as Valkyria Chronicles, but I'm certain it won't happen without a re-examination of what cRPGs should aspire to be.

Valkyria Chronicles is a game where:

• it's practically impossible to lose (as long as you station your tank's back against a wall where their radiator can't be hit), since fallen squad members can be resurrected at no cost and you have a limitless supply of health kits and ammo;
• the enemies are artificially gimped to an extreme degree (e.g. enemy units are not allowed to act more than twice during a phase, whereas there is no restriction on how many times your units can act);
• a ranking system punishes you for engaging in the core gameplay, reducing the XP and money you receive the longer you take to complete a mission, regardless of how well you play.

That's your idea of a "precisely and meticulously constructed" RPG? A lot of cRPGs have some mechanics that are unbalanced or not implemented as well as they could, but that's generally the result of having a wide scope. Valkyria Chronicles' scope on the other hand couldn't be smaller, consisting only of a linear series of combat maps, yet it still manages to be a mess of haphazard design decisions. The same is true for a lot of other jrpgs.

I think it would be more accurate to say that I think it's a precisely and meticulously constructed game. Valkyria Chronicles has one of the most vestigial character development systems in any Japanese RPG, so even in that sense it's barely an RPG. What it is, though, is a fantastic environmental puzzle game with Japanese tactical RPG trappings, and although I actually agree with your first and second points, I still think it was the best tactical RPG of its decade. The enemy is very anemic, but the game's mechanics aren't well suited for symmetric battles in the first place. What they are suited for is planning and executing fast and efficient assaults on largely static defensive positions, and fortunately, most of the game's (still fairly varied) missions are built with that in mind. Thanks to that, the level and mission design remains uniformly excellent and well matched for the game's mechanics all the way until the end, and I can barely even think of another tactical RPG where that's the case.

Truly, that the game has just about the narrowest possible scope is pretty much exactly my point; Valkyria Chronicles is a great game because it concentrates on the things that it does well and minimises everything else. In the same vein, FTL has a smaller scope than, say, Fallout, but then FTL also succeeds at having a genuinely relevant urgency mechanic where Fallout, and basically every cRPG that's ever tried having one, fails.

 

[Azarkon]

The reason any of this is confusing at all is because even the original Western CRPGs don't feature much roleplaying, and you could easily argue that roleplaying is a poor description of the game component of the genre. Roleplaying games emerged as a special branch of tactical strategy games. Gary Gygax was a tactical strategy games fan. It would not be inaccurate to say that the entire genre of roleplaying games should just be named "tactical strategy games," and that we're not actually roleplaying game fans, but strategy game fans. That would make tremendously more sense, in many respects, because there is a huge amount of overlap between the two genres and, more often than not, people who are attracted to roleplaying games will also be attracted to other strategy games because they have very similar game mechanic appeals. That is certainly the case for me.

I don't really disagree a whole lot with any of that. That said, though I am very much a fan of these "tactical strategy games", I am also a fan of roleplaying games, with which I suppose I primarily mean PnP games. So while it is a futile thing, by and large, I do find it interesting to consider to what extent computer games can do some of the things that PnP games do. The thing about JRPGs is that they obviously do very little, but they're still fun for some reason, so figuring out what it is they do exactly is an interesting question to me. I think that players probably do feel greater immersion as, say, Cloud Strife, because they spend hours playing as the character, even if the character is mostly outside player control in cutscenes. Then again, that's even more true for a game like Resident Evil, so go figure.

Gygax, incidentally, was certainly a wargamer, and he didn't care a great deal for thespian antics, but the games he played fall clearly outside the rubric of conventional strategy games too. The games Gygax himself ran, to the best of my knowledge, were deadly, high-tension dungeon crawls with an emphasis on navigation (players had to draw their own map based on Gygax's narration) and devious traps. What stands out as the emphasis of his games was carefully probing the gameworld for information to come up with creative, safe solutions to problems (alas, another thing that computer games can't really handle). If you asked me where the "roleplaying" comes in, I'd say that compared to actual strategy games, there's a strong identification between the player and the character; no one particularly cares if their toy soldiers die in a strategy game, whereas in an RPG, not wanting to die is very much the point. Roleplaying is there to create and nurture that identification, but without the "game" part, you're really just engaging in make-believe; it's only when you combine both that you get genuine tension, so both elements are eminently desirable.

In any case, semantics and theory aside, I'm firmly in the camp that neither cRPGs or JRPGs are capable of genuinely doing the things that distinguish PnP RPGs from, say, board games, so aspiring to the status of a "real RPG" is kind of pointless. What they can do, though, is try to accomplish some of the same effects in a different way that works on computers. What I've tried to say in this thread, I guess, is that cRPGs could really benefit from getting over trying to be like PnP games, as not only is it impossible to reach the goal with current technology, but trying very hard anyway has tended to result in mediocre and flawed games. If there's something good about JRPGs, it's that they've already gotten over that and are doing their own thing, and I think cRPGs would be better off doing the same.

The whole reason I did my break down was to emphasis what makes JRPGs enjoyable more precisely: tactical combat + cinematic story telling. They're not "roleplaying" games in the sense of either "roleplaying" another character, or "roleplaying yourself," both of which would require them to offer opportunities for player expression to a much larger degree than they do. Rather, you should think of JRPGs as being more like Western action games, but with a turn-based combat system. Your Resident Evil analogy is spot on, in this respect.

Is Call of Duty a "roleplaying" game? People have argued that it is, because it puts you in the shoes of a World War 2 soldier, so technically you are playing a role. But that's missing the forest for the trees. Call of Duty isn't "roleplaying" because you're not being evaluated on - nor does the game respond to - any form of player expression other than shooting people. Calling such a game "roleplaying" would be obsessing over a technicality, rather than looking at the larger experience that it represents. On the other hand, should Call of Duty start inserting other forms of player expressions, like talking with squad mates, dealing with shell shock, and making moral decisions on the field, then it will become, more and more, a "roleplaying" game.

The key to all this, however, is that the player has to be able to influence these expressions, to be an agent in the world. Otherwise, it becomes just a movie, and watching movies is not "roleplaying" any more than reading books is.