compartmentalizing what we were creating into a JRPG box
March 2, 2023 8:10 AM   Subscribe

Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida sparks debate over use of JRPG term [Eurogamer] Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida has criticized the term JRPG, sparking debate among players online. In an interview with Skill-Up following previews of the game, Yoshida was asked about how JRPGs have advanced in comparison to action games. According to the interviewer, Yoshida was visibly uncomfortable with the phrase.
"One thing [Yoshida] wants to get across is that when we create games, we don't go into them thinking we are creating JRPGs, we are just creating RPGs. The term JRPG is used by western media rather than users and media in Japan," said localisation director Koji Fox. [...] He said (as translated by Fox): "This is going to depend on who you ask but there was a time when this term first appeared 15 years ago, and for us as developers the first time we heard it, it was like a discriminatory term. As though we were being made fun of for creating these games, and so for some developers the term JRPG can be something that will maybe trigger bad feelings because of what it was in the past.
posted by Fizz (65 comments total) 11 users marked this as a favorite
 
JRPG is not a discriminatory term. It is a descriptive term (yes, in the West) to differentiate a different genre of game than Western RPGs, which arose out of '70s tabletop gaming. JRPGs have a different origin and are very different in gameplay than WPRGs.
posted by rhymedirective at 8:14 AM on March 2, 2023 [7 favorites]


I checked out of Final Fantasy after 13 (the weird corridor design one that I love even though it's absolutely not a very good game) so I haven't paid very close attention, but it's been notable how Yoshida's been going around during the development of this game with some questionable choices: posted by Four String Riot at 8:17 AM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


Maybe it's time for better descriptive terms? If the genres are that different, that should be possible. Easy, even. Take, for example, real-time strategy vs turn-based strategy.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:17 AM on March 2, 2023


mind boggling that people fail to see that "othering" an entire group based solely on race would be offensive. what do you think the "J" stands for?
posted by pingu at 8:20 AM on March 2, 2023 [10 favorites]


Maybe it's time for better descriptive terms? If the genres are that different, that should be possible. Easy, even. Take, for example, real-time strategy vs turn-based strategy.

Interestingly, they used to be called "computer RPGs" vs. "console RPGs".

I'm not entirely certain of the origin of the term "JRPG", but it is definitely more than 15 years old. It was not coined in 2008!

My theory is that "JRPG" came about because Western-style RPGs were being referred to as "CRPGs" which is obviously confusing, as the words computer and console both start with C.

It's no more discriminatory than talking about "French cinema".
posted by rhymedirective at 8:20 AM on March 2, 2023 [13 favorites]


It's interesting, because the JRPG distinction falls along both a mechanical axis as well as aesthetic. The mechanical separation is similar to the Eurogame / Ameritrash board game design divisions (altho Ameritrash is very much sets a tongue-in-cheek derogatory tone). The aesthetic division comes down to whether someone does or does not like anime and its associated tropes. There's a reason no sane person refers to Elden Ring as a JRPG..
posted by FatherDagon at 8:28 AM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


It's no more discriminatory than talking about "French cinema".

But just as reductive. While I agree it basically has innocent motives, it hints at a stereotypical style of play which may not be what the developers are trying for. It limits potential markets. I can see why the people involved in what it describes don't love it.
posted by opsin at 8:29 AM on March 2, 2023 [9 favorites]


The difference as I know it is JRPGs are (almost) always a linear story. The game mechanics involve overcoming challenges like battles, collecting resources and key items, etc., which then allows the player to "unlock" the next part of the story. I played a large portion of the most recent Dragon Quest (11, I think) game, and it was essentially like watching a very—very—long cartoon where you had to unlock the next cut scene or episode by gaining power and then defeating monsters. The end of the game is the same no matter what choices or methods the player used to unlock the episodes in the story. Another hallmark of JRPGs is (usually) the player character has a fixed personality, name and fighting style that is not changeable by the player.

Western CRPGs (mostly) have branching narratives where the player can make choices which causes consequences in the outcome of the story. Often there are multiple endings to the story based on choices the player made while playing the game. WRPGs (often, but not always) have main characters that can be created to look different and have different abilities depending on player choice. For instance, you could play a WRPG as a female Paladin, or as a male Wizard.

JRPGs mostly were turn-based games, at least in the past. WRPGs were often real-time , or real-time with a pause option where you could issue commands to various party members. I'm sure there are exceptions to my descriptions here. And it seems to my eyes that the lines between the two are becoming less and less distinct these days.

But back to my Dragon Quest 11 example. When that was released several years ago, there was a big celebration among JRPG enthusiasts as it was built along the lines of the older, turn based and linear JRPGs, a sort of return to form for the game type. It was an "old school" JRPG and was loved by many because of that. I think that example shows that there really are big differences in the game types, and that there are fans of both kinds of games.

I come from a TTRGP D&D background, and I generally prefer the WRPG style. I like having choices with consequences... even if some of the consequences are bad. But that's just my personal opinion.

It is kind of silly to hold on to these definitions though. Any game studio ini any country could make any style of game. A small studio in Oregon could make a "JRPG" type game... but then it's kind of dumb to call a game made by Americans a "Japanese" game. We need better terminology. Time has moved on and games are a billion dollar industry. These old acronyms are outdated.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:29 AM on March 2, 2023 [5 favorites]


rhymedirective, I think you're likely right about the origins of the term, but that doesn't mean we should ignore Japanese creators' complaints.

What are the mechanical distinctions? Random encounters vs. only planned encounters? Grinding vs. no grinding? Set characters with detailed plotlines vs. user-defined variable characters?
posted by HeroZero at 8:30 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Western RPGs, which arose out of '70s tabletop gaming. JRPGs have a different origin and are very different in gameplay than WPRGs.

If you imagine RPGs as a tree with Tolkien and war games as the roots, and D&D as the trunk, then the classical JRPG is one of the many branches that can trace its lineage back to Dragon Quest, which can in turn trace its roots back to Ultima and Wizardry, which grew out of D&D. Dragon Quest sought to condense the typical 80s CRPG experience, which was more of a sandbox, into a straightforward and accessible experience that worked on consoles. It used its cute menagerie of creatures to draw attention from Shounen Jump readers. A lot of imitators followed in its wake, including Final Fantasy, creating their own style. CRPG devs in the west, meanwhile, continued to hew to the classical 80s CRPG sandbox, growing in Baldur's Gate and the like. Hence, distinct styles were born.

Final Fantasy XVI is a "JRPG" in that the series can technically trace its roots back to Dragon Quest, and it retains some flourishes from the subgenre (the character designs, the monsters, some of the mechanics). But realistically, it left all that behind long ago.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:37 AM on March 2, 2023 [7 favorites]


Western RPGs, which arose out of '70s tabletop gaming. JRPGs have a different origin

I've never really looked into this, so I'd be grateful if you could say more. Just googling a bit, "1982–1987 — The Birth of Japanese RPGs, re-told in 15 Games" points to a few specific quotes and images illustrating how early computer RPGs developed in Japan seem inspired by '70s tabletop gaming, but that's about all I know. I understand D&D became more well-known in Japan at a later date, e.g. in the 1986-1987 Comptiq Magazine replays of Record Of Lodoss War, but even there, Hitoshi Yasuda starts by saying "Today the term 'RPG' is synonymous with PC games, but the ancestor of these games, 'Dungeons & Dragons,' was born back in 1974 in the United States." Anyhow, from an outside POV I've heard plenty of people use the term JRPG in a dismissive way, which never seemed great.
posted by Wobbuffet at 8:45 AM on March 2, 2023


Right, as I was thinking about this - how is Horizon Zero Dawn different from Final Fantasy XV? I mean, I can draw a distinction between FF7 and Baldur's Gate, and even down the road to Bethesda's RPGs, but these days it feels like genres are starting to lose their meaning.
posted by Kyol at 8:45 AM on March 2, 2023


"othering" an entire group based solely on race

I always read it not as race but at nationality, like German board games or Russian animation or British reality shows or American remakes. And having come of age at a time when Japan was already associated with high quality and creativity, it never felt pejorative. But outsiders can't decide how a term is interpreted by the people it applies to; if Yoshida's not alone in this and most or many Japanese people feel insulted by it, then maybe it's time to stop using it.
posted by trig at 8:45 AM on March 2, 2023 [19 favorites]


Western CRPGs (mostly) have branching narratives where the player can make choices which causes consequences in the outcome of the story. Often there are multiple endings to the story based on choices the player made while playing the game.

Also, this is silly. Plenty of JRPGs have branching narratives and multiple endings. Chrono Trigger, the definitive JRPG and unquestionable greatest game of all time, comes to mind. A more recent example would be Nier:Automata, with its 26 endings. This became especially true after relationship mechanics started being incorporated into JRPGs.

It's true that the "Big Two" of JRPGs, the Final Fantasy and DragonQuest franchises, don't generally use multiple endings, but it's quite common in JRGPs generally.
posted by star gentle uterus at 8:47 AM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


A small studio in Oregon could make a "JRPG" type game... but then it's kind of dumb to call a game made by Americans a "Japanese" game.

But it would make sense to call it a JRPG style game.

There are RPGs coming from Japanese companies that are not JRPGs.

You can describe a game based on its specific characteristics, but at some point it's easier to say "It's a Metroidvania game with minor role playing aspects" than go down a 15 item checklist.

If the term isn't useful then that's a different matter.

I'm sorry that Japanese devs view it (or viewed it) as racist or insulting or limiting, because I don't think that gamers today view it that way.

This isn't very different from Margaret Attwood complaining that her novels aren't science fiction. She can say what she likes, but many of them do fit squarely into the large and exciting box that most of us think of when we think of "science fiction", so while she doesn't think of herself as a "science fiction writer", that doesn't mean that her books have to agree with her (think of Mark Twain, who was not an SF writer, and "A Connecticut Yankee", which absolutely is science fiction and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise).
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:08 AM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


This is hair splitting far above most of our play grade, I am afraid.
Oh, the distinctionanity!
posted by y2karl at 9:28 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


OK you have to remember that the biggest audience for RPG-type games in Japan are people that are overworked and overstressed and want to relax and be entertained and in general that's what kinds of games succeed there. Complex but linear stories that can be told in hour-long chunks while folks are unwinding from a stressful day. Bed times stories, with buttons. This is what Dragon Quest is explicitly designed to do and to be, and is astronomically successful because of it. FF is very similar but has its own unique takes. Even in FFXIV the core questline is extremely linear and even if you just do that part your character will be levelled accordingly to match the needs of the battles and while you'll need to be careful it's still just a bedtime story told by wandering around and talking to people, ferrying things around, fighting pushover random monsters, and the occasional "boss fight." That's what FF is.

The core thing, I believe, about a JRPG, is that player mechanical twitch skill doesn't really matter. In order to win you just have to level up, find the right items, use the right potions, do the quests in the presented order, and the story will unfurl before you without significant trouble. Hell, in the last Dragon Quest I played, there was an "auto battle" option and reader, I never pressed X to attack in my entire playthrough. I just watched the story.

Dragon's Dogma was quite unique in that it was a western-style CRPG coming out of Japan. And then you have the whole FromSoftware souls franchise. It's not like the Japanese don't know how to make a combat-oriented action RPG. It's that the markets for these games are very different: gamers who want a physical challenge vs players who want to enjoy a story.

I think Story RPG is probably a better name than JRPG, thinking about it. SRPG v CRPG.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:28 AM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


But it would make sense to call it a JRPG style game.

The more I think about it, the more I'm convincing myself that it doesn't make sense.

So much of the JRPG 'style' is a product of discrimination. In the 1980s/1990s, it was expensive and difficult to localize RPGs for western markets. Lots of decisions were made about the 'suitability' of games for western consumption and we missed out on a ton of games because distributors thought they were 'unsuitable' for western audiences. We created the term 'JRPG' based only on a limited subset of the overall diversity of RPGs being developed in Japan and regardless of intent, I think that 'J' in 'JRPG' is a huge problem.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 9:34 AM on March 2, 2023 [7 favorites]


Dragon Quest sought to condense the typical 80s CRPG experience, which was more of a sandbox, into a straightforward and accessible experience that worked on consoles.
I do think that, at its core, this is the key distinction between JRPGs and the rest of the genre. JRPGs were built primarily to be played on consoles which meant, in the 80s and 90s, having a simpler control system and lighter memory requirements but greater audio/video capability. This also feeds into what I feel is some of the passive snobbery around the term, which mirrors how PC enthusiasts would often dismiss console games as dumbed down arcade toys. Fine for Street Fighter or Sonic the Hedgehog, but incapable of running anything as complex and "serious" as Civilization or Planescape: Torment.

Of course now, that distinction is academic. Playstation and Xbox hardware are very competitive with desktop computers, and with the advent of Steam Deck, most PC games need to be written to support a console layout just to have some sense of marketability. So, I, for one, think it's time to retire the term. And I'm honestly curious if the fact that both Steam and the Xbox are American products have also had something to do with eroding the sense of othering that once divided console and computer games.
posted by bl1nk at 9:40 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Heh, I’m old enough that I’m still annoyed that I have to say TTRPG to make it clear that I mean what we called RPGs back in the days just after there were more choices than D&D and Empire of the Petal Throne….
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:53 AM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


You know what, I'm totally with him about the term being discriminatory. But Yoshida has also stated his team won't put black people in 16 because he's hopped on the "it wouldn't reflect the historical setting!!" cryptoracist fantasybro express. With that in mind, this reads a bit like the bully whining about being bullied. I think everyone involved needs to examine whether they're trapped in the past.

(I note that I was shocked to hear it; I really like 14 because of its diverse cast, and Yoshida has even expressed sympathy for trans folk before. But apparently someone with his ear needs to have a talk with him. His incredible success makes that unlikely.)
posted by the liquid oxygen at 9:56 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


It's almost as if context mattered and the opinion of people who labels are applied to should have some say in whether those labels are offensive to them.
posted by signal at 9:58 AM on March 2, 2023 [10 favorites]


The JRPG can fully and completely be credited to Japanese developers. Kind of like the earlier comment about it being akin to *French cinema*, it is attached to the hip to its historical origins. Developers across the world make those type of games now, but in deference to its sole source origins, it carries the name of the people who made it a thing. If Japanese developers wish for us to refrain from calling it Japanese I have no problem renaming the genre to something like linear RPG, but we can’t pretend it is not its own style. Like French cinema.
posted by papineau at 9:59 AM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


In the US we never got the original Mother. At the time this game was a huge departure because it deliberately broke a lot of the RPG tropes that had been established by DragonQuest and Final Fantasy, but here in the west we just categorize it as a 'JRPG' mostly because of it's origin.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 10:00 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


While it's probably not offensive to many people, the idea that there is a singular "style" that can be called "French cinema" is, let's say this politely, suffering from a lack of exposure to actual films made in France by French people.
posted by signal at 10:08 AM on March 2, 2023 [7 favorites]


How do Germans feel about German Board Game as a term? I think the validity of the complaint hinges on whether it comes from the frustration of describing any RPG that comes out of Japan as a JRPG regardless of its style (and there is a segment of the market who say “oh, I don’t like Japanese games” and there is some racism built into that), or if it comes from political strategy of the Japanese right wing to paint Japan as aggrieved and oppressed on the world stage (of which the video game market is a part both economically and culturally) in order to generate resentment and justifications for violence.
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:10 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


I think the “French Cinema” or “Euro Game” formation is historically correct, although, as time goes on, the terms become increasingly less useful. “French Cinema,” as we usually think about it, arose in a particular place (France), at a particular time (immediately pst-WWII), with a specific group of creators working with each other and exploring themes that resonated in that time and place. By the 80s, French films had been exported and influenced films around the world, and films from elsewhere influenced French films, and the market expanded so that there are multiple currents in French film, so, while the term still means something, it doesn’t mean very much anymore.

So it would be totally fine to develop new terminology since clearly not all RPGs made in Japan are “really” JRPGs and not all JRPGs are made in Japan, and it gets to be a non-helpful term pretty quickly.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:19 AM on March 2, 2023 [10 favorites]


I usually come into these discussions later and learn what words are polite and current, so I'm excited to be working on the cutting edge here!

Brainstorming:
- Lump everything into just "RPG". Sure, there's less utility, but petty distinctions aren't necessary! Pull from the RPG bucket twice and follow up Caves of Qud with Dragon Quest Builders. Live a little!
- N-RPG: "Narrative" RPG: tells a specific story, maybe with multiple endings. Great for Personas/FFs/DQs/Fallout/Disco Elysium. Might include more Visual Novels than you'd expect.
- SRPG: Could be story RPG, but I usually see this as strategy RPG: Shining Force, Fire Emblem, X-Com, etc.
- ARPG: "Anime" RPG. Would work great for FF / Xenoblade Chronicles, but we already use this for action-RPG: Diablo, Castlevania SotN, etc.

Or, two dimensions: if you can significantly change the background of your character and if it's got turn-based combat. Those are useful proxies for a lot of things, and we'd only have four terms to come up with!
posted by Anonymous Function at 10:21 AM on March 2, 2023


It absolutely was pejorative, and it's really unfortunately dismissive of a whole country or culture, depending on how you prefer to read the term. It's also embarrassing and innacurate.

Back in the 90s, when I was like "ugh, Chrono Trigger. Jrpg, no thanks, " the things I didn't like about it were all mechanical: the combat, the random encounter grind, the boss fights. The story, setting, and anime-ness of it all were fine by me. I hated that game so much that I played it all the way to the end (which took a loooong time), so I really shouldn't have been surprised when a few years later American developers started to be like "jrpg mechanics are good, actually," and stared to make things like Anachronox (another really long game whose mechanics I hated so much that I played it to the (sadly kinda broken) end).

These days the term doesn't seem to be about the mechanics at all, to the point where if I say Darkest Dungeon is a jrpg, people look at me cross-eyed. (I can't stand the mechanics of that game, which is why I have only played it for about 80 happy hours.) All that's left of the term is the racism.

Or maybe that's all there ever was, and I was mistaken to think it was about mechanics. Wizardry, Might & Magic, the Bards Tale had grindy random encounters and simplified turn based combat, and those games are as Western as it gets. In the 90s, maybe it was easy to forget that because of all those SSI goldbox games, which had Wizard's Crown-like turn-based combat (today, we would call that Xcom-like).
posted by surlyben at 10:27 AM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


surlyben,

Since you use the past tense "hated" regarding your feelings towards Chrono Trigger, I assume that means that you have since realized your monstrous error and repented.
posted by star gentle uterus at 10:46 AM on March 2, 2023 [5 favorites]


JRPG made sense at a particular point in time where games were more tied to platforms they ran on, and described a community of developers in conversation, developing a set of conventions, embellishing them or sometimes disagreeing with them. Well, the internet that gave us the term also kinda broadened the conversation to the point where it doesn't make sense any more.

At this point I don't even know what makes Final Fantasy an RPG anymore. Gaining experience and levels? Casting magic? Perhaps FF has become a genre unto itself. Perhaps we can oblige Yoshida and stop calling it an RPG at all. I'm starting to think that "AAA game" is actually a genre, one where you wander a huge map, climb to really high places to see that map, and are rewarded for winning with unlocks in a skill tree. Since they all seem to be converging on it.

But even historically, "RPG" was a misnomer. "RPG" games, as a matter of necessity, abandoned the collaborative story telling aspects of Role Playing Games, and wound up focusing on telling a story, and resolving it through combat.

It's underutliized, but Octopath Traveller introduced a Paths system that introduced new ways to interact with NPCs beyond the murderhobo tactics of yore. You can learn their backstories, trade goods, and inspire them to join your quest. Or spy on them, steal their stuff, and seduce them. But these actions are rarely critical to any character's story, and it doesn't matter at all if you are honorable or rogue in your approach. The sequel came out last week and adds day and night actions, but so far its still a tacked on component, and you can still buy your way out of a bad reputation. It's basically an importation of skill checks D&D makes outside of combat, but there's fertile ground to make non-violent resolutions more central to the game.

I think Story RPG is probably a better name than JRPG, thinking about it. SRPG v CRPG.

Well, Strategy RPG already exists and commonly abbreviated SRPG.

Back in the 90s, when I was like "ugh, Chrono Trigger. Jrpg, no thanks, " the things I didn't like about it were all mechanical: the combat, the random encounter grind, the boss fights.

Which is weird because Chrono Trigger's combat featured time and positioning, which were fresh and new at the time. You could delay your move until those three goblins wandered into a tight grouping that your AoE would hit all of them. And there were zero random encounters. You saw pretty much every encounter coming, could prepare, or avoid it entirely. (but if you did that, you'd be underleveled for the boss and have to go back and grind!)
posted by pwnguin at 10:51 AM on March 2, 2023 [5 favorites]


I remember when I had an Asian-Am boyfriend in college, and an aunt referred to him as "oriental." When I expressed horrified embarrassment, she got mad at me . She said she didn't know why she had to keep learning new words, and the way she was using it, "oriental" was just in contrast to "occidental" and literally meant eastern and was therefore accurate in historical origin, so why was I being difficult.

(She uses the term Asian now, and pretends that conversation never happened.)

If it feels racist to the people it's labeling, maybe it's racist, and maybe we should listen to them.
posted by BlueBlueElectricBlue at 10:56 AM on March 2, 2023 [6 favorites]


Maybe we should start using

洋RPG (Western RPG, Yo-RPG)
和RPG (Japanese RPG, Wa-RPG)

Sort of like yoshoku/washoku descriptions of food.
posted by fnerg at 11:07 AM on March 2, 2023


I don't see why we should play the game of, Unless the category of "JRPG" has sharply defined boundaries in terms of style and / or mechanics, the word shouldn't be used. It refers to games in a broad artistic tradition whose style and mechanics have evolved over time, in conversation with its own history and its own specialized audience that developed alongside it. I'm sure it is less distinctive today than it was in the '90s, because the audience (and developer community) for videogames is much more globalized today than it was back then, and nowadays the category may not be that useful (I don't follow new stuff enough to be confident). For example, it feels odd to say Dark Souls is a JRPG, because its style and influences are very different from the stuff that was called JRPGs when the term first gained currency. The prototypical conception of a JRPG, or mine anyway, was certainly shaped by the Japanese games that were getting localized and marketed in the US in the '90s and early 2000s, too. So there are Japanese-made RPGs from as far back as you like that it feels funny to call "JRPGs," because they are more like Wizardry than Final Fantasy and they didn't get big overseas (i.e., outside Japan).

On the other hand, if the term applies to anything, I'm pretty sure it applies to the next mainline Final Fantasy game. In fact, the complaints Yoshida has made seem to really be complaints about the reception of Final Fantasy games, which makes sense since he is the producer of FFXVI and previously a major figure in the later FFXIV. They are stereotyped in the West as,
"Travelling around the world, speaking with fans and media about their image of the [Final Fantasy] franchise, they would always give the same answer: that it's turn based, that it's anime like, these teenagers saving the world, 'very JRPG'," said Yoshida.

"This was the image for all Final Fantasy. This was turning off some players because they thought it could only be that and that was a reason to not get into it."
It sounds like he is complaining that "all Final Fantasy" is assumed to participate in certain tropes made famous by their development in the insanely globally successful ... Final Fantasy ... series, especially the breakout hit FFVII. Which, like, yeah, if you are trying to make a mainline Final Fantasy game 15-25 years after FFVII, and you don't want to be working under its shadow, that could be pretty annoying! I get it. But your problem isn't coming from the word "JRPG." It's coming from the fact that you're working on a property with a 40-year history, which people have strong opinions about because it is one of the most successful global videogame properties of all time. This is without getting into whether the popular image of Final Fantasy, as described by Yoshida, is even inaccurate.

I also don't think it's right to say it's "pejorative." There are people who (in their opinion) don't like JRPGs. Maybe sometimes that's narrow-minded of them, kind of like it would be narrow-minded to dislike "anime" (a term which in English usage basically means "Japanese animation"), given the enormous breadth of stuff that's anime. But there's lots of us who have been fans specifically of JRPGs, and for us the term would've been a selling point. The difference, and the wrong if there is one, is not in the meaning of the word, but in the attitude of the user -- again very much like with the word "anime."
posted by grobstein at 11:23 AM on March 2, 2023 [8 favorites]


Since you use the past tense "hated" regarding your feelings towards Chrono Trigger, I assume that means that you have since realized your monstrous error and repented

I repented of those feelings *during the play through.* In particular, I remember noticing that the combat was more interesting and positional than my first impression (though it never turned into something like xcom), and the grind wasn't that bad. It is the game that made me realize how much I don't like boss fights, but the rest of it was good enough to carry me past that.

(I hope it's clear that my "hate" for Chrono Trigger is hyperbole intended to indicate how very wrong I was. I finished the game, after all, then went back and got other endings, and then went on to play other games with similar mechanics.)
posted by surlyben at 11:28 AM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


ORPG (open world RPG), RRPG (RPG on rails), TRPG (Turn based RPG), I have ideas, but none of them are that great.

Also, I feel like the RP part of any non multiplayer is kind of non-existent. As a single player I'm not doing anything performative or writing my own dialog.
posted by BrotherCaine at 11:29 AM on March 2, 2023


"Zelda" used to be another coherent name for a style of RPG made in Japan that was distinct from Final Fantasies or Fromsoft Souls games (or western genres like Bethesda Skyrims or Bioware Mass Effects) but Breath of the Wild blew that up and both Elden Ring and recent Final Fantasies are more open-ended and these games all seem much more interested in mixing and matching rather than in staying in one lane.
posted by straight at 11:31 AM on March 2, 2023


Lump everything into just "RPG". Sure, there's less utility, but petty distinctions aren't necessary!

I saw this occasionally by reviewers who weren't in the gaming industry. You're in the "role" of Mario - hence, a Role Playing Game!

This discussion reminds me of trying to buy CDs in the 90s - I like this band, where are their albums? Are they "Rock"? Are they "Pop"? Perhaps they're not mainstream enough to be in either, maybe they're in the "Alternative" section? Surprise, they were in the "Electronic" area!
posted by meowzilla at 11:32 AM on March 2, 2023 [6 favorites]


As I remember it, 20 odd years ago, the distinction was between JRPGs and CRPGs. JRPGs were all console games. While there were Japanese computer games, they weren't imported into the west, and were effectively invisible for most of us. FF7 had a PC port, but by all accounts, it wasn't very good. I can't think of any Western console RPGs in the PS/PS2/X-Box era. There was an Elder Scrolls game for the PS/3, I think, but I remember it having issues.
I got a PS/2 to play JRPGs. (And play them, I did. FFX-XII, Xenosaga, the SMT games, and a bunch more.) The distinction's pretty meaningless now, but at one point, I'd argue that it was real.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:53 AM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


SoberHighland: "The difference as I know it is JRPGs are (almost) always a linear story. The game mechanics involve overcoming challenges like battles, collecting resources and key items, etc., which then allows the player to "unlock" the next part of the story. I played a large portion of the most recent Dragon Quest (11, I think) game, and it was essentially like watching a very—very—long cartoon where you had to unlock the next cut scene or episode by gaining power and then defeating monsters. The end of the game is the same no matter what choices or methods the player used to unlock the episodes in the story. Another hallmark of JRPGs is (usually) the player character has a fixed personality, name and fighting style that is not changeable by the player."

So... Breath of the Wild is a JRPG then. I mean, is it? I don't think so, but to pretend that it doesn't have all these hallmarks (or that it wasn't heavily influenced style-wise by anime) would be incorrect.

Maybe the name should reflect the gameplay philosophy. "Open world RPG" vs. "Fixed path RPG"? (I mean we already have MMORPG... do people feel the need to tack on a J to some of these as well?) Or just call them RPGs, and refer to them by comparison to well-known predecessor games (e.g. "roguelike" used to describe games with play style similar to the original in the genre) - "It's a Zelda-like RPG" or whatever.
posted by caution live frogs at 11:56 AM on March 2, 2023


>"Zelda" used to be another coherent name for a style of RPG made in Japan that was distinct from Final Fantasies or Fromsoft Souls games

I remember many a flame war sparked by the debate of whether Zelda was an RPG or something else. Genres never hold up under close inspection since they're fundamentally just a sloppy tool for conveniently grouping different things for different reasons.

jRPGs can be made anywhere and when someone refers to a game with that label, if you're into the medium, you get a good idea about many of its mechanics, the language of play, what kinds of things to expect in a general familiar framework. RPG designs can be very hit or miss, some folks are never going to get that engaged with a combat system based in selecting options in menus, others are never going to be cool with games with real-time action based combat.

I wouldn't want some developers to have bad feelings by remembering old pains so I wouldn't use that specific genre term if I were speaking with those developers and might be a convenient ground to bring up racism issues within games of the genre and its devs and industry.
posted by GoblinHoney at 12:00 PM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


A few months ago, I chunked up decades of Steam bargain shopping into categories, and this is what I landed on for RPG or RPG adjacent genres:

- Immersive Sim
- MMORPG
- Narrative
- Narrative - Visual Novel
- Roguelite
- RPG: Action
- RPG: Classic Roguelike
- RPG: Dungeon Crawler
- RPG: First Person / Open World
- RPG: JRPG (I guess this one gets to be split again, when I figure out into what.)
- RPG: Soulslike
- RPG: Strategy / Tactics
- RPG: Survival / Management
- RPG: Textual
- RPG: Western
posted by Anonymous Function at 12:10 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


Term JRPG is Inaccurate, Misleading, Says Man Making Sixteenth 'Final' Fantasy
posted by straight at 2:08 PM on March 2, 2023 [12 favorites]


Also, I feel like the RP part of any non multiplayer is kind of non-existent. As a single player I'm not doing anything performative or writing my own dialog.

The role-playing can manifest in a few ways. If you have different character classes then playing as a fighter will not be the same as playing as a mage. It's not harder or easier, it's just different. Even if you aren't able to write your own dialog, you are usually able to approach conversations in different ways and that's also part of role playing.

The whole feel of the game is different depending on who your game character is.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 2:23 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


mind boggling that people fail to see that "othering" an entire group based solely on race would be offensive

I understand your point but insisting the term only refers to race is perhaps dismissing Nasir's contribution to the genre.
posted by pwnguin at 2:29 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


JRPG started to see use in western countries because, like roguelike, because it was a term that made talking about a large body of works that have certain points in common easier. They diverged because JRPGs had a period where they mostly got inspiration from each other rather that from the separately-evolving thread of CRPGs and TTRPGs, it's kind of gotten conflated with that culture. (Yes, Dragon Quest was inspired by Wizardry and Ultima. You could think of that as like when the native species on the Galapagos Islands became isolated from the mainland, to evolve on their own for awhile.)

Since the land where JRPGs evolved was Japan, and take ideas from Japanese culture and manga and anime art, there is a certain aptness to the name. You absolutely can find Japanese RPGs that buck the trends, but because the J in JRPG stands for Japan, people will still call then JRPGs. Maybe that shouldn't happen? Similarly, there are CRPGs in the west that purposely adopt JRPG styles. I think some reviewers call them JRPGs, and some call them something like JRPG-ish games, or something else to emphasize that they are following those trends. Undertale and Deltarune are prominent examples of them.

A full list of the concepts that C- and J- RPGs tend to follow would be quite long, but quickly, and recognizing that there are exceptions to all of them:
As observed before, CRPGs tend to be more sandboxy, while JRPGs are usually more linear.
CRPGs tend to be more simulationist, JRPGs more narrativist.
CRPGs tend to let you create your character's appearance and statistics, while JRPGs give you premades.
CRPGs tend to look more realistic, JRPGs more artistic.
CRPGs tend to remember a little more clearly their distant tabletop roots, while JRPGs mostly come by those ideas by way of Dragon Quest's connection to Wizardry and Ultima, although notably there is a Japanese tabletop game, Sword World, that imports JRPG tropes back around to pen-and-paper play. (Record of Lodoss War was based off a tabletop campaign that utilized that system.)

Another genre that inspired JRPGs are menu-based text adventures, which similarly borrow from western adventure games, and also derive from a single game, The Portopia Serial Murder Case... which was written by Yuji Horii, the creator of Dragon Quest. Dragon Quest's menu system obviously is an iteration of the one from Portopia. Maybe they should be called Horii-RPGs.

Truthfully, most CRPGs have pulled pretty far from their tabletop roots by this point too. And lots of games that no one calls RPGs have adapted RPG elements. Any game where you can change your weapon between collectable replacements, where your character earns experience points and gains levels of ability, where creatures have numerical statistics, gets those ideas from RPGs. The term RPG as it applies to video and computer games, for whatever systems and from whichever culture, is nowhere near as solid as it once was.
posted by JHarris at 2:35 PM on March 2, 2023 [5 favorites]


I'm very first-class-of-Pokémon (I was 13 in 1999) and so all JPRGs were great and perfect and I wanted nothing to do with your Fallouts or your wizards who need food badly, thank you very much. It's so weird to me to hear people say that Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy were derisively referred to as jrpgs when that is exactly why I played them.

At any rate, I kind of always filed these away as "squeenix-likes" in the taxonomical tradition of "rogue-likes" (squeenix of course being the tabloid couple name for Square/Enix, the developers of Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest respectively), and I offer that up to anyone that may find it useful.
posted by gee_the_riot at 2:40 PM on March 2, 2023 [5 favorites]


Sword World, that imports JRPG tropes back around to pen-and-paper play. (Record of Lodoss War was based off a tabletop campaign that utilized that system.)

This is a minor detail, especially because more happened with Record of Lodoss War afterward, but given that the translator claims its first published version wasn't available in English until May/June 2021, maybe it's worth highlighting: "The Lodoss campaign was played using the D&D Basic and Expert Rules released ... in Japan in 1985." It's a fun, nostalgic read from an 'RPG history' standpoint to see how it introduced Dungeons and Dragons.
posted by Wobbuffet at 4:52 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


I'm sorry that Japanese devs view it (or viewed it) as racist or insulting or limiting, because I don't think that gamers today view it that way.

I've known quite a few gamers who argue that their use of the homophobic f**** slur is actually not meant to be offensive - it's gotten overused to a point where it's just a goofy word you drop on the day-to-day.

I've also heard from quite a few queer friends that this totally fucking sucks.

If I decided to side with my gamer friends in deciding that their use of the word isn't offensive and just ignore the people who say its usage fucking sucks and is offensive, did I do the right thing here?

When someone says 'hey the way you described me and the stuff I do sucked' is it super cool if I provide them with a monologue about why my specific usage of the word isn't meant to be offensive so they shouldn't be offended? Or have we grown just a tiny slight bit in our understanding about why the use of language in reductive, heuristic ways can be damaging to people and now know better than to go on giant fucking boring rants about why you should be allowed to say what you want, fuck how other people feel?
posted by paimapi at 5:29 PM on March 2, 2023 [4 favorites]


I have nothing to contribute except I think this is opposite but related to the expansion of isekai to refer to any kind of portal fantasy regardless of whether it was made in Japan.

Genre experts discuss.

(But also, is it so hard not to use terms with bad history towards people who have told you those terms make them feel bad?)
posted by brook horse at 7:03 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


I'm not sure but I love saying shit like "Lawrence of Arabia is an isekai," "Dune is an isekai."
posted by grobstein at 7:04 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Gee_the_riot has inspired my new tag: RPG-Rectangular. (Because they're Square-ish. )
posted by Anonymous Function at 7:26 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


While it's probably not offensive to many people, the idea that there is a singular "style" that can be called "French cinema" is, let's say this politely, suffering from a lack of exposure to actual films made in France by French people.

Yes, but at the same time, no one would blink an eye at a course on French cinema. Although all categorization eventually breaks down under scrutiny (as Aristotle said, we are not carving nature at its joints), works from the same culture tend to have important things in common. That's not the only or always the most interesting way to group cultural texts, but it's often an interesting one.

At the time I was aware of them, "JRPG" was a style distinction, not a derogatory term, at least in the circles I frequented (it's entirely possible that doesn't cover all usage). To be honest, I'm no longer au courant enough with gaming to say whether the distinction is an effective/useful one down to the present day, but it's strange to me that people would think it weird that content and play-style of games from an East Asian country--in other words, a country with a long history and a culture of its own with relatively minimal influence from the West, and a serious language/script barrier--could be meaningfully different from those from the US/UK. I would bet these developers have used their own term to distinguish between their RPGs and "Western-style" RPGs (like "yoshuku").

Sometimes I think in these discussions we long to have a very simple principle to apply that can have us do the right thing without having to think about it too much. And sometimes there is--e.g., when we're talking about blatant slurs. Sometimes we even suspect that thinking and talking about it is a sign of bad faith. And sometimes it is--we've all been in those conversations, I'm sure. But sometimes, as with the recent discussion of what Turkey should be called, it's not all that simple or clean. And then we end up applying principles in a way that would have a class in the Japanese novel inherently suspect.
posted by praemunire at 8:05 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


People want it both ways though. It can’t be both akin to a class on “novels/movies/etc. made in [country]” (which may have particular tropes and genre conventions, but which are not unique or pervasive enough to call the genre itself simply by the name of the country) and also “a distinct play style (which is not actually true of many of the games called JRPGs) unique enough that we can identify other games by their similarity to it.” Like do we call any Western books “Japanese-novel-like?” Idk, maybe we do, but that seems suspect to me. Whereas we call things JRPG-like in a fashion that implies JRPG means a specific kind of game, but which is also made frequently by people who are not Japanese. If it does, why are we so attached to the J as the specific description?
posted by brook horse at 8:36 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


One aspect of this discussion that I don't think has been highlighted in this thread thus far: many Japanese-developed RPGs have been responding much more to Western games since the genre was codified. Since FF11 at least, Final Fantasy has been drawing huge inspiration from Western games; similarly, the Xenoblade Chronicles draws a lot from Western open-world games. Apparently Dragon Quest started adding voice acting because of Western localisation, as well. So while there might have been a period where Japanese developed games were mostly responding to each other, that hasn't been true for a generation.

There has been some influence the other way, as well - I've seen a few games that draw from the elaborate upgrade systems of Japanese RPGs, such as Path of Exile's (ridiculous) passive skill tree.
posted by Merus at 8:39 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]


Further food for thought, if people can explain why Elden Ring and Dark Souls are rarely described as JRPGs and why Kingdom Hearts and Fire Emblem both generally are, then we might better understand the whole playing field.

(My partner wants to throw into the mix the bombshell “Kingdom Hearts and Fire Emblem are not RPGs because there’s no role-playing in them,” but do with that what you will.)
posted by brook horse at 9:11 PM on March 2, 2023 [2 favorites]


Kingdom Hearts has stats and leveling, right? That's pretty much what makes a computer RPG an RPG (and is also why Breath of the Wild is not a JRPG - it doesn't have any of the elements that make a computer game an RPG).

I see this like "German board games" or "German style board games". They do not have to be from Germany, but many of the foundational games in the genre were. Increasingly, the borders are blurred as those games influence and are influenced by the wider developments in board gaming. But while we can argue about the exact boundaries, about whether this particular game does or doesn't fit the definition, we have those arguments because the genre terms continue to be useful in talking about things with shares characteristics.

So: I'm not attached to "JRPG" as a term, I am happy to adopt another word, but I am attached to that genre grouping as an idea.

Somehow, I don't think the name of the genre is the reason that people are assuming that the next Final Fantasy game is a JRPG. We could call it a Squeenix game, or a Final-Trigger-like or whatever, and it wouldn't solve the fundamental problem that Yoshida is annoyed by.

Like, if the director of the next Bond film gets annoyed by the assumptions about the film he's making, the problem isn't the notion of a spy fiction genre. It's specific to the project you're working on, and the history of the associated franchise.
posted by Dysk at 10:28 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]


I think "Anime RPG" captures the same meaning as JRPG without calling out a specific nationality.

Although Elden Ring is made by a japanese company, it's not Anime, neither in its aesthetics nor its mechanics, and so we don't call it a JRPG.

In the same way, we could replace the terms KPOP and JPOP with a single one: Idol Pop
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:30 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


This kind of nomenclature can already be found in the fighting game community, btw. Although most fighting games are made in Japan, the designation of Anime Fighting Game only applies to certain games. It carries mechanical connotations such as the number of buttons and the amount of mobility available. Street Fighter is not considered Anime by this standard, despite the art style. I think that's why the art style for Street Fighter has become less anime over time.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 7:41 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


I'm sure this has been covered but here I go anyway:

The term probably isn't great, both from an accuracy perspective and also a generalizing-about-a-culture perspective.

Accuracy-wise, categorizing things is always messy and imperfect, but it still helps to have categories when you've got a lot of something. Not all RPGs made in Japan are JRPGs and not all JRPGs are from Japan, obviously. I think of it as having an invisible "-style" after "Japan". See also American cheese, Canadian bacon, etc etc.

If people find the term offensive or homogenizing to themselves or their culture or the category in question, then they should be listened to. From an outsider's perspective, I don't see who is being harmed in using the term JRPG. I'm also willing to be wrong about this, and this specific topic was not one I'd thought of before.
posted by rhooke at 7:52 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


> This kind of nomenclature can already be found in the fighting game community, btw.

I also see people call those "air dashers", but "anime fighting game" is definitely more common, and the Venn diagram is more or less a circle.
posted by Anonymous Function at 9:04 AM on March 3, 2023


"The Lodoss campaign was played using the D&D Basic and Expert Rules released ... in Japan in 1985." It's a fun, nostalgic read from an 'RPG history' standpoint to see how it introduced Dungeons and Dragons.

Ah! I could very well have misremembered and conflated facts there. And isn't it nice that the Internet Archive is around to remember these things?
posted by JHarris at 11:25 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


So I've never really been into PC RPGs. Closest I've been is Skyrim on PS4. So I just looked up the plot of Ultima I and.... wow. You are on a quest to retrieve the four gems, so you can go back in time and kill the evil wizard. Whereas in Final Fantasy, you are on a quest to restore four crystals, so you can go back in time and kill the evil knight.

But Final Fantasy forgot to include lazer blasters and space fighter battles.
posted by pwnguin at 11:43 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]


But Final Fantasy did have a late-game tech dungeon, and Warmech.
posted by JHarris at 8:08 PM on March 4, 2023




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