Can't JRPG grow up?

[Jarsonne]

I'd like a civil exchange to understand from what comes those JRPG cliché.

1. Forced male teen main character
Ok I get it's probably easier to sell games having a male main character than female, perhaps ignore this, even if it bores me.

But why teen and teen and teen again? I can't bear those JTPG male teen main characters. From what comes this?

Are Japanese teens and kids want be teens forever and don't want grow up adult? I vaguely remind it was a recurrent expectation to become adult finally, and often some adults saying enjoy this time. But at end, I/we was right, adult is much better than kid/teen and parents piloting you.

2. Bizarre combats looking basic
Why all need look the same weird face to face combats? It's clear there's at least tactic JRPG, that used combats on a grid, but still why so many JRPG need use again and again this similar combat system?

3. Forced kid companion
No matter how there's always companions clearly evoking kid, but who bring kids to wars? Very weird this weird thing needs be done again and again.

4. Others
In fact there's a myriad of JRPG cliché, but those three above seems those more impactful, so I'll skip make a long list.

[REhorror]

Originally posted by Melodia:

Originally posted by REhorror:

Pretty sure JRPG just means Japanese Role Playing Games, not Japanese-style.
There is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of japanese styles.
.

It's become its own thing. Sea of Stars, Crystal Project, Cosmic Star Heroine, Edge of Eternity, Cris Tales....etc etc. Not made in Japan but still 100% in the same genre as Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Suikoden, Persona and Trails.

Alternatively, games like Dragons' Dogma and Dark Souls are very clearly not, and lean music more closer to the likes of Skyrim and Cyberpunk.

Yeah, naw, Sea of Stars, whatever are still WRPG, they just put on a classic NES art style to earn more bucks.

Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls aren't closer to Skyrim and Cyberpunk either. DD and DS are action RPG with stylist combat and grand enemies, while Skyrim and Cyberpunk are action RPG with huge focus on stats and open world with side activities.

JRPG = Japanese Role Playing Game, japanese have plenty of styles, and Dark Souls and Kingdom Hearts belonging to the same genre (Action RPG) show their variety on that.

Don't get it wrong.

EDIT: Edge of Eternity is also a CRPG - Chinese Role Playing Game, the chinese would be insulted if it's called a JRPG since it's not made by japanese.

[Selphea]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Yeah, naw, Sea of Stars, whatever are still WRPG, they just put on a classic NES art style to earn more bucks.

Dragon's Dogma and Dark Souls aren't closer to Skyrim and Cyberpunk either. DD and DS are action RPG with stylist combat and grand enemies, while Skyrim and Cyberpunk are action RPG with huge focus on stats and open world with side activities.

JRPG = Japanese Role Playing Game, japanese have plenty of styles, and Dark Souls and Kingdom Hearts belonging to the same genre (Action RPG) show their variety on that.

Don't get it wrong.

EDIT: Edge of Eternity is also a CRPG - Chinese Role Playing Game, the chinese would be insulted if it's called a JRPG since it's not made by japanese.

I feel JRPG as a term only worked in the 90s to early 2000s. At that time they had a lot in common, and they launched on Japanese consoles, but i don't think the genre itself was ever clearly defined beyond nationality.

If it's systems, Final Fantasy was inspired by D&D which was a Western system.

If it's art style, Yoshitaka Amano's concept art did not look like anime at all, and 90s games like Ultima used 2D pixel art sprites too.

If it's the gameplay, Bamco calls Code Vein an RPG and it's a Soulslike.

Everything's been cross-pollinated and hybridized to the point where the "J" is impossible to define beyond nationality.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by Selphea:

Originally posted by Melodia:

Dragon's Dogma is closer to Skyrim than anything in the JRPG camp. It's Japanese, but it's not a Japanese-style role playing game.

Is there a widely recognized definition of what exactly constitutes "Japanese-style" for an RPG? Genuine question otherwise we'll end up going "is not!" "are too!" for ages.

The tag name isn't its meaning, but it lead to question what is JRPG because when I check steam list for it, it's everything and anything, comical. And for sure this Steam tag wasn't the context of my wondering, serious, even if the thread title was a miss thought. Overall my point was about, age of characters, combat system, various bizarre cliché reused so often even if not always.

But when games as Yakuza series are tagged JRPG too for sure it weaken the wonderer, but then JRPG means nothing, and ceertainly not games made by Japanese otherwise Elden Ring would have been clearly tagged JRPG.

[valentino.lizal]

Originally posted by Jarsonne:

Originally posted by Selphea:

Is there a widely recognized definition of what exactly constitutes "Japanese-style" for an RPG? Genuine question otherwise we'll end up going "is not!" "are too!" for ages.

The tag name isn't its meaning, but it lead to question what is JRPG because when I check steam list for it, it's everything and anything, comical. And for sure this Steam tag wasn't the context of my wondering, serious, even if the thread title was a miss thought. Overall my point was about, age of characters, combat system, various bizarre cliché reused so often even if not always.

But when games as Yakuza series are tagged JRPG too for sure it weaken the wonderer, but then JRPG means nothing, and ceertainly not games made by Japanese otherwise Elden Ring would have been clearly tagged JRPG.

Elden Ring is jrpg.

[Zio]

Tags and genre names these days are a mishmash of each and everything people want to attribute to games, mostly useless and at least unhelpful. Twinstick shooters are now action roguelite and what not, even going as far as calling them RPGs. Nowadays a game gets a lot of its genre attributions based on individual features, style and otherwise, it's silly.

That said, every since the end of page 2 of this discussion most of it has derailed into questioning OPs motivations, sincerity or otherwise attacking them or giving bad faith answers. Stick to the topic, stick to games that the given descriptions apply to, talk about those, that's what this is about. This is a matter of opinions and sicussion, no fight about who is right and wrong.

[Jarsonne]

So only Japanese can make JRPG? If right it smells the xenophobic tag that needs vanish in oblivion.

Currently in Steam it became a useless tag junk with everything and anything, so meaning nothing relevant, I don't care if it's Japanese that made a game or not, facepalm.

[Zio]

Originally posted by Jarsonne:

So only Japanese can make JRPG? If right it smells the xenophobic tag that needs vanish in oblivion.

Currently in Steam it became a useless tag junk with everything and anything, so meaning nothing relevant, I don't care if it's Japanese that made a game or not, facepalm.

Yeah that's one of the prevailing interpretations. Likewise, animes. There are people who say everything made in Japan is anime, and everything not, is not anime. And so on. You have purists all over the place, though for many the racism is just a pet project they adopted on the go. It's not that they are intent of it, but they don't question it either.

[Selphea]

What is K-Pop or K-Drama or KMMO? Pop songs or dramas or MMOs originally made in Korea and then distributed worldwide. Seems fair enough for JRPGs to mean the same thing. And Cyberpunk 2077 is a Polish RPG because CDPR is headquartered in Poland. Doesn't seem xenophobic to me, any country can produce amazing games of whatever style.

Anime is different since it doesn't specifically reference a nationality, and there are many grey areas. A lot of anime is produced outside Japan, for example outsourcing to Korea, China or Vietnam. There are studios like Smilegate and Hoyo that make distinctively anime-style games because anime has specific guides on how to draw in that style... but there aren't the same guides for "JRPG".

[Zephyr Workshop]

Originally posted by Jarsonne:

I'd like a civil exchange to understand from what comes those JRPG cliché.

1. Forced male teen main character
Ok I get it's probably easier to sell games having a male main character than female, perhaps ignore this, even if it bores me.

But why teen and teen and teen again? I can't bear those JTPG male teen main characters. From what comes this?

Are Japanese teens and kids want be teens forever and don't want grow up adult? I vaguely remind it was a recurrent expectation to become adult finally, and often some adults saying enjoy this time. But at end, I/we was right, adult is much better than kid/teen and parents piloting you.

2. Bizarre combats looking basic
Why all need look the same weird face to face combats? It's clear there's at least tactic JRPG, that used combats on a grid, but still why so many JRPG need use again and again this similar combat system?

3. Forced kid companion
No matter how there's always companions clearly evoking kid, but who bring kids to wars? Very weird this weird thing needs be done again and again.

4. Others
In fact there's a myriad of JRPG cliché, but those three above seems those more impactful, so I'll skip make a long list.

you should play Radiant Historia. the main character is an adult, an assassin, and is incredibly pragmatic. tbh i think it's still one of the best post-PS2 JRPGs. the DS version is better too, since the 3DS version went out of its way to make it more "kawaii" and generic by redoing a lot of the art.

[Zio]

So a team of japanese developers that make a jrpg but all of them live and work in, let's say Norway, does it make it an NRPG? No.

I mean yeah sure you can say that the classification is tied to a country, but then that's that and no further arguing from you is necessary, because the point is the point and then there's no nuance. Plenty of people think the equivalents from your anime explanation applies to JRPGs. So it's either set in stone, or it's not. But this discussion isn't about the validity of the classifications. OP said before that maybe has picked the wrong words, but that's why I said stick to the discription, stick to the stuff that applies to what OP means.

[Zephyr Workshop]

oh we're splitting hairs on JRPGs itt?

genre-wise, a "JRPG" is a game where

a. you control a party of characters, instead of a self-insert
b. combat and exploration are separated into two distinctly different systems

there you go.

this is at odds with SRPGs (FFT, Fire Emblem), Action RPGs (Nier, Kingdom Hearts, YS), and CRPGs (Diablo, Path of Exile), WRPGs (Skyrim, Elden Ring) and gacha garbage (which are like jrpgs, but without an exploration element)

going by genre conventions, steven universe: attack the light is a JRPG, and Elden Ring is a WRPG. thank you for your time.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

you should play Radiant Historia. the main character is an adult, an assassin, and is incredibly pragmatic. tbh i think it's still one of the best post-PS2 JRPGs. the DS version is better too, since the 3DS version went out of its way to make it more "kawaii" and generic by redoing a lot of the art.

The DS screen is too small and I used the bigger screen version.

I remind a Dragon Quest I played on DS was in three parts, each having a different main character, first was a very very young kid girl or boy I don't remind, the second was a quite aged soldier, and the third was the cliché of male teen. Alas combats was serious junk without much thought on them or at a meta level so global management of resources.

I suppose a part of the problem is the Anime style that tend make any character look very young, so if the writing is a bit ambiguous, I feel it as boredom male teen cliché.

[Jarsonne]

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

oh we're splitting hairs on JRPGs itt?

genre-wise, a "JRPG" is a game where

a. you control a party of characters, instead of a self-insert
b. combat and exploration are separated into two distinctly different systems

there you go.

Then Spiderweb chained make JRPG without knowing it. And many Westerrn classic RPG was also JRPG, typically like Pool of Radiance series.

So nope, your definition is wrong.

[Zio]

Yeah we should compeely stop arguing about definitions, it's leading nowhere

[Overeagerdragon]

Originally posted by Zephyr Workshop:

oh we're splitting hairs on JRPGs itt?

genre-wise, a "JRPG" is a game where

a. you control a party of characters, instead of a self-insert
b. combat and exploration are separated into two distinctly different systems

there you go.

this is at odds with SRPGs (FFT, Fire Emblem), Action RPGs (Nier, Kingdom Hearts, YS), and CRPGs (Diablo, Path of Exile), WRPGs (Skyrim, Elden Ring) and gacha garbage (which are like jrpgs, but without an exploration element)

going by genre conventions, steven universe: attack the light is a JRPG, and Elden Ring is a WRPG. thank you for your time.

You just pissed of the entire fanbases of Baldur's Gate, Pillar's of Eternity etc by calling Diablo and Path of Exile CRPG's.... They're not; they're ARPG's (Action RPG's) like Nier, Ys and KH. CRPG are basically the pen and paper style RPG's but translated to videogame... It's not called a CLASSIC-Role playing game for nothing.

But you DID strike the nail on its head with JRPG's; there's plenty of subgenre's in it (and even subgenre's within those subgenre's) but was originally depicted as a Japanese -Roleplaying Game... Usually with the BIG distinction that western RPG's focus more on gameplay and Japanese RPG's usually focus more on the story

Over time this line has continued to become muddier as both sides have been taking inspiration of eachother...

EDIT: These days it's usually better to use the tag system than outright try to box a game in. By the same token as me saying Nier is an action RPG, I could ALSO say it's a hack n slash (Same playstyle as DMC/ BAyonetta). I could call Elden Ring a Soulslike-RPG.... but also an openworld RPG (Looking at you Genshin Impact) or Action RPG....
It's pretty useless to confine games like this these days... and even the tag system is not strictly enforced as I've seen strategic RPG's with not a hint of strategy in them for example