Debate of The Day: Western or Japanese RPGs?

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Before you guys rage about this, this is not a discussion intended to be about which is better. We all know that it is about preference (even with consoles) at the end of the day. Let us know why you prefer one or the other and what makes it special. You can even talk about the things you don’t like about it. So, I guess this is more of a discussion of the day.

I personally like both since I am a big fan of the Final Fantasy and Mass Effect series. The battle system and cutesy music of Japanese role-playing games will always be something that I treasure. However, I do tend to lean towards western role-playing games more because they are often realistic (if that is the right term) or more grounded appearance. That’s just me though.

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7 Comments

  1. I got into RPGs in the early 2000s after playing Final Fantasy X, and I loved JRPGs for a long time after that. I was engrossed by lengthy game play and often times amazingly epic stories and characters, the music was normally amazing as well. FFX, FFXII, FFVII, Legend of Dragoon, Xenogears, and Xenosaga being among my favorites in the genre….Vagrant Story too, if that counts.

    The first western rpg I played was the first KOTOR, and it was just as amazing, if not a more streamlined experience. I loved the dialogue options and deeper sense of immersion that that style of game from bioware represented and carried through the Mass Effect series and the first Dragon Age. I also enjoy the more action oriented gameplay compared to the turn based affairs of my youth.

    MY love for the old school JRPGS not withstanding, I think Final Fantasy XII was the last one I actually played, Final Fantasy XIII looked terrible to me from the outset, and frankly many JRPG game play elements come off as dated nowadays, to me at least (I lost interest in the Ni No Kuni demo when the first speech bubble with no accompanying audio appeared, It’s 2013, use a voice track. Petty, I know, but as an adult video game time has to be allocated carefully. If the game doesn’t suck me into the world, i lose interest.) I’m sure there are some new JRPGs that have amazing gameplay and stories, but none of them have done anything from a marketing standpoint to catch my interest. And after playing such series as the Witcher or Mass Effect, I don’t know that one will.

    Now that I think on it, offer me a crazy JRPG world and music, with Western RPG Action and storytelling and I’ll gladly buy your game.

  2. im interested to see what else pops up in the comments here, but i used to be a final fantasy fanboy, which would point me towards the japanese turn-based style. as of late, however, i have been turned on more by titles like skyrim and the mass effect series. i think the available character customization and molding in western rpg’s has attracted me much more than the japanese style where it’s usually “here’s your character, now play through this story”. in other words, i like options and open ends which i think you’ll find more in western rpg’s.

  3. In the old days, there was no competition in terms of console games. JRPGs all day. There was just no Western competition for the likes of FF or Chrono Trigger. But at some point Japan lost some of its mojo and now they’ve got no answer for games by Bethesda or BioWare or The Witcher. On PC it was different, but I only dabbled in PC gaming so I’m specifically focusing on console titles and more recently the Xbox 360 since that’s the console I currently own.

    There were some really promising JRPG’s early in this gen like The Last Remnant, Infinite Undiscovery, and Resonance of Fate that had some really great features, but they didn’t get any support. I am convinced that The Last Remnant was released unfinished because it had severe balancing issues and texture loading delays and things like that. It would have been amazing if it had gotten the polish it needed. Same with Undiscovery. Some of the features just felt thrown together on that one. I think I read that the funding for those games got pulled by Square and diverted to FFXIII. What a shame.

    Resonance of Fate was great and had a crazy innovative gun-based battle system, but it just didn’t get any love. Then there was Record of Agarest War which had an amazing concept, but it also had DS graphics and presentation on a console and poorly thought-out time system that meant you pretty much had to read a walkthrough and take notes on where you needed to be on what day if you didn’t want to miss the best story moments. This is not a good idea.

    I loved Dragon’s Dogma too, but I’m very concerned that the sequels won’t attempt to improve the core game or offer significantly more features because that’s the way Japanese games have been trending.

    So yeah, I’ve got to go with Western RPGs based on franchises like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Elder Scrolls, and The Witcher. These are just where its at right now. I am hoping for a Japanese resurgence, though. When I finally get that PS3 I’ve been dreaming about, there’s several more JRPG’s waiting for me there too so maybe one of those’ll surprise me.

  4. I’ve always been a JRPG girl though I’ve never really thought about why until now. I guess the main appeal to me was always the stories, I think stories from games like Final Fantasy and Shadow Hearts had more impact on me than even books did in terms of wanting to be a writer. My dream career as a 7 year old was to be a writer for final fantasy, and this is back in the days when video games were exclusively seen as a male market so I was considered very strange.
    Plus I do tend to prefer my stories with more fantasy elements than realism, even in terms of style which is probably why I’ve never really fallen in love with ffXIII

    And I know people sometimes hate turn based battle systems but I love them, there’s something so comforting about them. I like little tweaks to make them more exciting (like the judgement ring in Shadow Hearts) but when games try and move away from them I just get sad and disinterested (looking at you ffXII)

    I understand the appeal of creating your own character and having control over the story in ways that most western RPG’s allow, but I personally don’t want to be the hero or shape my own adventure, I want to get lost in someone elses

    Did not expect that to become an essay but I just finished FFIX yesterday after missing it out as a kid so this has just been well timed

  5. I like your points Gabbi, I mostly agree with them. FFIX happens to be my favorite. Partially because of nostalgia, but the game stands on its own I feel. The style and the Vivi story-line are simply amazing. Great cast of characters.

    More recently, I’ve played Mass Effect, Skyrim and Fallout. I loved those games, but they, for me, lack the charm that Tales of Symphonia, Chrono Trigger, FFVI/IX, Fire Emblem and so many other games have.

    I strongly support the suggestion that a renowned Western and JRPG studio team up to create something awesome.

    We can see JRPG’s moving away from turn-based battles. I like innovation, but I don’t like MMO style auto-attack (Xeno on Wii, the battles to me are boring, although I do appreciate what they were trying to do). It just ‘feels’ wrong te me somehow. I guess that why I’ve moved to playing SRPG’s like Disgaea and Fire Emblem and even FFT on my Iphone (suprisingly playable!).

    Now, just give me more RPG’s to play!

  6. I’m pretty much a JRPG girl through-and-through, but with a special exception for Bioware RPGs. Like Gabbi, I prefer to have a defined cast of characters instead of a created player avatar, and Bioware is the only WRPG company I’ve found where the NPCs can fully make up for the more variable player character. The Mass Effect games, Dragon Age: Origins, and Baldur’s Gate II are total standouts in my mind, and definitely exemplars of the genre. (I also like KotOR I/II and Jade Empire, but not as much.)

    PSX-era Final Fantasy (and JRPGs in general, including Legend of Dragoon and Chrono Cross) was really the gold standard for me in terms of RPGs — amazing music, beautiful pre-rendered backgrounds, diverse casts, and immersive worlds. Since FFIX, the only JRPG series that has really grabbed me like that is the Shin Megami Tensei series — specifically, the Persona subseries. Which is odd, because they tend to be a fusion of social sim and dungeon crawler, neither genre I am terribly fond of by itself, but put together with all the fascinating mythological/psychological themes and excellent cast, localization, and voice work, the games are just pure magic. I highly recommend them (Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4/Persona 4 Golden, mostly.)

    I feel like the future of JRPGs lies on handheld devices. I played more fun and interesting games on my PSP this generation than I did my PS3, with Lost Odyssey as really the only current generation console JRPG that was the “full package” in my opinion. (Disclaimer: I did honestly enjoy FFXIII, though it was often in spite of the game. I’m a sucker for world-building and a neat mythos, what can I say? Also Snow and Fang were boss.) I don’t own a Vita (yet) but I’ve played more 3DS JRPGs lately than console games, so this trend seems to continue. I read recently that FFVI was created in a year, and that the limitations of the SNES contributed to its development. In JRPGs, I feel like limitations can be helpful, and when you take those away, there’s too much of an impetus on pretty graphics, which can cut down on the size of the world and increase development time.

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