Forwards Compatible is a weekly roundtable discussion about thoughtful and interesting topics involving videogames. Each week a spearhead topic will be put forth and several Gametopius writers, as well as other contributors, will give their thoughts.
Jeff Grubb
Managing Editor, Gametopius.com
I've never been one for Japanese RPGs. I agree with the common complaint that all JRPGs are either Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, but is that fair? JRPGs do suffer from a certain degree of stagnation, but don't all genres? The tiny details that separate one JRPG from another doesn't seem like that much, there must be more to it than what I am seeing.
I should probably start form the beginning, which is easy because the beginning is also the present and future. Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest have been the Head-Games-In-Charge of this particular gaming ghetto since the dawn of the genre. Some have argued that all other genres have a similar Head-Game-In-Charge and if those genres haven't suffered from it why assume that JRPGs have? First-person-shooters have Halo, or more recently Call of Duty, platformers have had Mario for many years, and football games have Madden. On the surface that seems like a very compelling defense of JRPGs, and of Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest in particular, but under closer scrutiny it doesn't quite hold up.
The top first-person shooter is always changing. Wolfenstein, Doom, Goldeneye, Half-life, Halo, and Call of Duty have all taken time at the top of the hill. The fans of this genre are never happy for long, and this unwillingness to settle has led to games that are very different from one another.
For years Madden was in the same boat. Challengers from Gameday to 2k would take the title belt away and Madden would have to change things up to get it back. Until, of course, EA got tired of competing and out-bought the competition and gained exclusive rights to the NFL. Many fans of the series would admit that the lack of competition hurt the series for some time. Slumping sales have seemed to reignite the fire and Tiburon has taken it upon themselves to make the series worthy again.
Mario is the most curious as it has, like Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest, always been above all of its peers. The difference is that Mario immediately established the precedent that each sequel would be drastically different from the last, and they have held to that standard. Even when the fans demanded a sequel as quickly as possible Nintendo didn't cave in.
Is there something that I am missing about Japanese RPGs? Do the differences between job systems and dress systems amount to more than what I am seeing? They obviously must, please tell me that they do. At the same time I can't help the feeling that the fans actually don't want the games to change and that if they made the exact same game with a different story they would be happy. Which is fine for them, but it DOES hurt the genre. Developers have realized that other JRPGs can't compete and that they should only try to emulate Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. This is the absolute antithesis of a genre like FPSs where the king of the hill must be conquered, and all imitators are panned as "clones."
However, I can see a defense when compared to Madden. One football game compared to the next is even more identical than any RPG game compared to another RPG game. When it comes to football it is all about how the tiny details pan out. However, that still seems sad to me. Football games are always the same, because football fans want the sport properly emulated. Do JRPG fans want all the games to be the same, because they want FF and DQ properly emulated?
I know that JRPGs have the potential to become so much more. The World Ends With You and the Mario & Luigi games have shown that there is room for growth, but they get ignored to the detriment of the genre as a whole. I could be way off base on all of this. I feel like I am insulting JRPG fans and I am probably just revealing some basic lack of understanding. Please, correct me where I am wrong.
Daniel Bischoff PLAY READ WRITE:
I think that the subtleties of job systems and magic systems are the bread and butter of evolution in Japanese style RPGs. Graphics look better across all genres as do animations and production values, but the core gameplay, where any real evolution will occur in the genre, is affected in finely tuned increments as battle systems take shape over several iterations of any Japanese RPG series.
People who can find themselves delving deeply into the battle systems in JRPGs have probably looked beyond the new coat of veneer each console generation allows developers to polish on to their games. I think understanding the core of the RPG genre involves a certain mathematical finesse I just don't have. If I find myself with options to increase abilities or stats on one of my units in Final Fantasy Tactics, I usually beef up the Hit Points and the Attack damage. I'm sure I could be doing more with luck as my thief moogle fails to snatch any coins from the opponent, but I'm trying my best to just get through this battle and on to the next.
I suppose that's the rub. I don't have the imagination to craft a character that represents a unique role in battle. First person shooters leave very little to explain or think up on the player side: you enter a room, bad guys pop out, you shoot them, you progress to the next room. RPGs, and JRPGs more specifically try to get the player to take control of a central figure. More emphasis is put on the story and the ability to give your protagonist powers you think fitting of a young man with amnesia.
In this I can find what I'd like to pick out from JRPGs and what I can leave behind me, unpurchased, unplayed. I like the stories JRPGs can convey, especially in the way they get the player invest. Characters die left and right in FPS titles, but when someone dies in a JRPG I question if I will ever see them again, and if I have another 50 hours without that character. I also like the production values JRPGs manage to entail. If I have to look at the same animations, I want it to at least look good. What I don't like are the tedious random encounters that nag at me as I try to make my way across a field or waiting for my turn to make commands, how long does it take the computer to think about which character it'll attack?
As a writer, I respect JRPGs for their long standing traditions and intricate battle systems. As a player, I feel so defeated by the sheer number of hours they require.
Snake Link Sonic
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A collection of our 1UP readers... Comments (  Personally... Serraxor Posted: 09/01/2009 I think there's something wrong with the TERM "JRPG". It's only recently started to be used en masse, and it's usually associated with bad connotations. Myself, I always use the term "RPG". Real Power Gaming... Dioxel-GunArson Posted: 09/01/2009 Like any genre the RPG is defined by it's core mechanics. I'm sure most gamers are familiar with what those mechanics are so I'll forego repeating them. It's the naunces of that core and it's presentation that make each title in that genre unique. The problem with a lot of RPGs lately is that the presentation between each one is too similiar. Most RPGs let you play as a young hero that's destined to vanquish evil and save the planet. Been there, done that. It's boring now. Let me role play as someone else already. Heck let be take on the role of the badguy that's trying to take over the world. Anything else would be more interesting. Let's take Final Fantasy 9 for instance. The most interesting charcter for me was the middle aged soldier, Steiner. He was physically different, but more importantly his main motivation was simply following his orders to protect the princess. The lengths he would go through to ensure the completion of the task was something I found more interesting than the love story between the two leads. Just imagine how they could have wrote up a whole story about his dedication and teaching that lesson to a bunch of undisciplined kids. Would have been fantastic. Whoops, I'm rambling. So Iet me wrap this up with. Role Playing Games - how about giving me some different roles to play as instead of spikey haired kid who'll save the world. |
Snake Link Sonic
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More... our newest podcast was completely on this topic PressPauseRadio Posted: 09/01/2009 go give it a listen & tel us what you think!~Georgieboy-PPR~ Main Problem with JRPGS zeecorner Posted: 09/01/2009 You may disagree with me at first, but hear me out. I think the main issue with JRPGS in general is the turn-based combat system. I would consider this system to be old and broken, it was originally used back when hardware limited games to be in turn-based format (Yes there were action RPGs back then as well, but they sucked).Flash forward twenty years and they are still using this system. I really didn't play much RPGs until 2000, almost a decade ago, when I got started with Diablo II, and then after that games like Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights. After I decided I liked RPGs, I bought Chrono Trigger, FF3 (6), and Earthbound, to this day the only one of those I can get through is Chrono Trigger. I believe this is becuase I started playing RPGs with the western, action oriented format, and then went back and tried to play the out-dated JRPG turn-based format. If you look at the sales numbers as well, JRPGs are really taking a dive compared to the WRPGS. I think they need to evolve their gameplay, I haven't looked too hard into the new Final Fantasy game, but I am guessing they haven't. That is my thoughts on the issue anyway. Dare I say fanboyism to blame? Jonathon_Striker Posted: 09/01/2009 When I think JRPG, I DON'T think Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. That's because I've played so many RPGs that I know better than to follow one company who just reimages the same game over and over again with different graphics and story lines. I think JRPG came about when someone started calling games like Fallout and Fable an RPG. I don't see how a boy who lost his family and friends and had his village burned down and decides to take on the world of evil all by himself chosing to be a good or bad guy makes for an RPG. I've grown up on the basic concept of Parties, Levels, Equipment, Puzzles, Dungeons, and some kind of strategic battle system as an RPG. American RPGs however have become a much different idea of things, where it could be an FPS, but be an RPG just because there is a long story line with "paths", and maybe a couple of typical elements. Unfortunately, JRPGs have been associated are associated by non-RPG fans as Final Fantasy. Why? Because, who hasn't heard the name? The old turn-based battle that Square-Enix "revolutionized" with it's new "Active Time Battle" wasn't much difference from the old, and is pretty outdated. Yet Final Fantasy has played it all the way up to FF12, with what I call "ATB with free roaming". If you really wanted a "new" style of battle system, you should be checking with Namco Bandai, who's been publishing the Tales Of series with the Linear Battle System that makes it feel much more like a fighting game. I think the other problem is also that JRPGs tend to fall into a game with a "cartoon" story line, and most ignorant Americans associate anything "animated" as something for kids. They want to play a game that seems post-apocalyptic, something where there is rape, and blood, and shooting, and body parts flying all over the place, and has to look very realistic, as though it were a movie. People who label JRPGs as such are ignorant to the Japanese Animation style, as they can be even more intense then the best movies we put out here in the states, and some of the games that don't make it out of Japan make our our M rated stuff look like they should be rated E. |
Snake Link Sonic
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And yet a few more... Real roleplaying... D3v4st4t0r Posted: 09/01/2009 My only problem with Japanese RPGs is the lack of a true sense of "roleplaying" wherein you really get to define the role your character plays. It would be nice if the developers found a way to craft an involving story that at the same time, allows the same kind of character defining choices that you usually see in western RPGs. As someone... San_Andreas_666 Posted: 09/01/2009 ...who's played RPGs from both sides of the Pacific, I can tell you that American-made RPGs have evolved minimally from their Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roots. The big reason they seem so "in" now is that they've spent most of the last 30 years languishing in relative obscurity on the PC. They still largely focus around the stock Tolkien/Gygax races of elves, dwarves, and orcs, just like they did in 1980. They still cling to 6d12 battle mechanics. And since Diablo, they extensively use the "click-whack-whack-whack" battle mechanic. That's just as turn-based as Dragon Quest, except that your player and the enemies whacking each other and slinging fireballs at each other is entirely automated, minimal input from the player other than hitting that left mouse button once or twice. That's not "action." No matter how much you or the enemy moves, your attacks home in on each other and a hit and a miss is determined the same way it is in Dragon Quest: by some hidden number generator in the program code, not by whether you hustled your happy ass out of the way. Furthermore, strict "turn-based play" is a mechanic, too, and not necessarily an outdated one. The NES was capable of manipulating more than one Player Character at a time. And that's a mechanic of American-made RPGs which is infecting Japanese RPGs in increasing numbers: AI controlled party members. At least in a turn-based system (particularly in games like FF Tactics) you have total control. In Fallout 3, for instance (a game that, despite my apparent anti-American RPG stance, I really enjoyed), the only two useful party members are Fawkes and RL-3 - party members so powerful that they're practically invincible, which pretty much means you can just keep your weapon put away and stand back. The AI is pretty dumb. Fawkes and RL-3 can get away with being dumb because they're so overly powered, but any other followers you have will be gutted in short order if you get jumped by more than one enemy more powerful than a Radscorpion. The big reason I liked Fallout 3, incidentally was due to its theming and art design - I grew up on post-nuclear movies like the Terminator flicks, Mad Max, and The Day After. There aren't a lot of games that truly capture the true post-nuclear pastiche; the best games of this order prior to the Fallout games were Final Fantasy VI and the 2300 A.D. world in Chrono Trigger, two very Japanese RPGs. It has nothing to do with the game engine. I hated Oblivion. I don't like Tolkien, but too many US-made RPGs are absolutely hung up on Lord of the Rings, and US RPG makers will never let go of that archetype. @Jeff Grubb: I'm not buying your analogy of how first-person shooters are "constantly changing". The name changes, the facade changes: the rest stays the same. There's two persistent archetypes that dominate the first person shooter, and both of them date from id Software's first two blockbusters, Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom: "realistic" war games pitting America against various European and Asian enemies, and marines vs. aliens. Even the weapons are pretty much the same, particularly in the latter type: the melee weapon, the pistol, the shotgun, the machine gun, the sniper rifle, the laser rifle, and the BFG-type "big gun." And since the year 2000, there are pretty much two uncontested mega-series, one to represent each archetype: Halo represents the "Doom" marines-vs.-aliens archetype, while Call of Duty represents the "Wolfenstein" America-vs.-Eurasia archetype. |
Snake Link Sonic
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More room for input... I echo the rest. Mark_D._Stroyer_ Posted: 09/01/2009 RPGs typically have very little if any real roleplaying in the sense of acting as a character, as JRPGs are very much a closed linear, driven experience. The WRPG has made progress in giving character freedom, and more ability to actually roleplay a character to some extent. See Mass Effect and Fallout 3 as examples of that. Also, the mechanics suck. The original tabletop mechanics were something to provide a firm structure underneath the character-portraying, story-based top level. Because the emphasis is on the story, and the mechanics are there just to keep things fair, and in that regard they work. However, RPGs have always stayed too close to these mechanics. Having a button press to simulate dice rolls, everything entirely stat- and chance-based, it's just not interactive gaming. It's a simulated formula. And I could go on, but I'll stop here. Because I've said it already, in more cohesive form. If you really want to, go there to see my thoughts. Ultimately, there's not much real originality in the world. There just isn't. Most everything can be reduced to a number of broad, encompassing groups. However, there's nothing new under the sun. However, there's always room to do things different, and more importantly, done better. That's what we're looking for. As mentioned, Killzone 2 is a great example of this. But when people aren't doing things all that differently, and when things just aren't getting better...what's the point, again? |
DanTheIsland
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My most prominant thoughts on JRPG's can be boiled down to one sentiment. I often hate the character designs. It's that simple. If the game doesn't have interesting looking characters, or character archetypes that I can identify with I don't want anything to do with it. You're right in saying that JRPG's are usually very similar, and it bores me to death to spend these 40+ hour jaunts with a cast of lame-o's. Too often JRPG protagonists are either: 1) Girly Man 2) Girly Girl 3) Slightly-Less-Girly Man with +1 Sword of Overcompensation 4) Deviant-Art ejaculation of belts, zippers, spikes, and androgyny. |
Valke
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@Dan But the question is, what fits your description of a "girly man"? What about a main protagonist who is a total badass but just happens to have long hair? (see Yuri from Tales of Vesperia, who I feel is one of the best JRPG characters in the past bunch of years) |
Snake Link Sonic
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More... Hmmm, my thoughts catgirl147 Posted: 09/02/2009 Yah, I've also started blog topics on the stagnation of JRPG's, check it out if you feel like it... but for me, its the fact that there are some outstanding JRPG's and JRPG Developers out there who are making amazing games that are gradually evolving as times change. When you take these games and compare them to other games in the genre which are NOT evolving, then it really seems like certain games are just stagnating. In a way, I believe it is the developers fault, and remakes of old games are somewhat to blame because they don't really change up the battle mechanics or the plots or characters, which are the essential parts of the RPG. Remakes are great to spruce up graphics and such, but they don't 'do' much for the genre itself; no new exciting battle system, the same old plot and characters tend to cause the genre to not only stagnate, but regress. I know that the next generation probably appreciates the remakes of classics, like FFVII now on PSN, and all the millions of FF remakes for the DS/PSP, but to invest time and energy into remakes in lieu of making new games is a mistake, in my opinion. I love the fact that the Atlus has taken the Persona series to the next level by introducing the social links and Persona compendium, and the appeal of Persona is further augmented by the huge replay value and interesting cast of characters (well, P4 at least). Not to mention the freebies and fan service that Atlus showers on its fans. I love the fact that Square Enix is venturing beyond its safe zone and creating games like The World Ends with You, and even FF Dissidia which was a huge gamble, given the fact that gamers who enjoy fighting games as well as RPGs may both have certain issues with the game. Both of these games are much more of a gamble then say, a FFVI remake, because they introduce new mechanics to the JRPG genre that were previously unheard of. Even Secret of Mana when it first came out seemed like a novel idea. What I don't love are blatant copies/remakes of past titles, with developers just recycling the same material over and over again. I recently finished a couple of NIS titles that were EXACTLY the same as the previous ones, sure slight adjustments here or there, but yah, otherwise exactly the same. A couple of examples? Ar Tonelico II, Mana Khemia II, Atelier Iris III... and don't even get me started on Disgaea. Same thing with the Harvest Moon Series, which I used to love. For a lot of companies, the thinking is that getting out a huge volume of RPG's, whether they introduce new ideas or not, will make more profit then just focusing on a few quality titles. Unfortunately, even great companies like Square Enix tend to fall into the comfortable trap of just reusing plots, characters, and battle mechanics- and sometimes they even freely admit to it. Face it, the Dragon Quest series hasn't evolved much since the original, despite the new Dragon Quest IX and it's non random battles etc etc. The storyline and characters are still almost carbon copies of the original. I think that is where the idea of 'stagnation' of the RPG genre comes from. Keep in mind I'm slightly torn on the issue of 'stagnation' of the JRPG genre, because I do buy remakes of old games that I used to play... but I buy it for the nostalgia, I don't really expect anything 'new' when I play these games. I just wish developers would focus less on remakes and more on new and improved games, so that gamers don't see the genre as stagnating so much. |
Snake Link Sonic
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Well, what is expected? beanburritos I am simply left a bit confused by all the griping of the stagnation in JRPGs, and some attempts to try to demonstrate how it's the only genre where this is seen. Is there stagnation in JRPGs? Only at the high levels, but those high levels are indicative of gerne itself! You play one or more people who advance through a story played out in setpiece battles, and in between advance your character(s) via less important battles that, taken on the whole, allow you to be strong enough to continue to the next setpiece battle. That's a role-playing game's basic points. Take them away, and you don't have a role-playing game. Sure, I've had tabletop games that don't feature setpiece battles to advance the story, but those are very rare, and the major conflict resolution was still a setpiece contest. Conflict is necessary to storytelling, and violent conflict lends itself to definitive resolution: Lavos is dead, so the world is fine. You couldn't stop Kefka from moving the statues, so the world goes boom. These setpiece battles allow you to know that this fight is important, and it's been used in storytelling since Homer. Achilles and Hector squaring off was made into a massive deal, because it was a titanic battle. Why should Cloud and Sephiroth be any different, from a storytelling perspective? For that matter, why should Mario and Bowser be different? So, having established that conflict is necessary, and that a setpiece is a key way to show climactic points in a story, and is typically used in video games regardless of genre (Killzone 2 had it, too), we clearly cannot be rid of them, so stagnation discussion cannot include them. In addition, complaining about the stagnation of the rest of the high level ideas in RPGs, J or W, is pointless. Advancing your characters between these major encounters is typical and necessary. Ask yourself, what if we removed those battles? Then we would have to move from setpiece to setpiece, and each of those major battles would have to improve us to the point where we could face down the next directly. It would be silly to make us move to the next one manually, there would be no obstructions or challenges -- it would be a waste of time. So it'd simply be a series of boss battles with exposition in between, and it wouldn't be very good. And any other way of proceeding to the next setpiece would involve other genres. Should they navigate trecherous terrain instead? Then it would primarily be a platformer with an expanding life bar and ability list and perhaps a needlessly obtuse interface for the boss battles. |
Snake Link Sonic
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cont... So, when dissecting stagnation in JRPGs, we can't rid ourselves of the story or boss battles, nor can we be rid of the levelling up mechanic (these being the whole point). So, that leaves two key design elements in play for legitmate claims of stagnation: how do the characters grow, and what is the level of abstraction in declaring your actions? In terms of character growth, what has occurred is a trend toward flexibility, both in tabletop and videogame RPGs. Early RPGs like D&D and DQ had virtually none, both tabletop and otherwise. White Wolf and FF VII gave us total flexibility, and the inevitable godmoding for those willing to put in the time. Current ideas in videogame RPGs are mainly semi-flexible, a perfect example being FFX's Sphere Grid, a less-perfect one being Tales of Vesperia, which give a wide array of options, but map only 8 to buttons. In tabletop, fully flexible games are still available, but most tend towards a similar idea of semi-flexibility. A fighter in D&D 3.5 has common elements, but the feats give a high level of customization.So, there's not been stagnation, although we may be facing that now in terms of character growth. How does a character grow in a way that isn't static, flexible, or semi-flexible? That answer will be the next Big Thing. Lastly, there is an issue of abstraction. I don't think there is any stagnation here. How do your interface operations translate into character actions. There is a wide spectrum to use: from Fallout 3's reliance on FPS mechanics to provide very directly operation to action translations all the way to the turn based RPG, where things are very abstracted. Likewise, there is a specturm of abstraction of detail, from the traditional FF or DQ battle to the SRPG, where every positioning detail can make a difference. To argue that there is stagnation because the spectrum isn't even wider is ludricrous. I think the spectrum is about as wide as it can be, given the limitations of videogames in general. Of course it doesn't meet telling the GM what you want to do, and it never will. I do suspect that even greater levels of detail may come in the future, and greater levels of abstraction may, as well (ref. Fable 2). So, I don't think that RPGs are any more stagnant than action games, sports games, or shooters. Will I ever have the same eye-opening experience like the first time I played DQ1 or FF1 on the NES? Of course not, and it'd be foolish to expect it. Will I get new games that explore these spaces in new ways? I certainly hope so, and I suspect that we will. |
Flash739
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mmmmmmmmm......When Ff7 came out, it blew my mind. I had no idea what the point of the game was. My friend played the opening, and I kept asking him what the game was about. I had never seen such a thing. I asked what his goal was, how do you win? Where are the points. When I saw the game was a narrative, I was hooked. The one thing that turned me off about the game? The menu/managing characters system. I can barely keep my checkbook balanced, now I need to make sure this guy works well with this weapon etc. It got to out of hand. As much as I wanna try new Jrpgs, I have to say to myself real quick, "will you even bother beating this game?" I tend to not beat or stick with games that require more then 10-12 hours of my time total. Thats just me. |
OneNerdyGirl
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I prefer turned based battle systems to active time battles which I guess why I prefer JRPG's. But I think splitting them up into JRPG and WRPG is a little silly. They are all just different types of RPG's. However I think some of the shooting type games that are coming out, or something like Fable 2 isnt really an RPG. Thats a type of game that needs a new category. |
Flash739
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@OneNerdyGirl Why would it NOT count as an RPG? Does it NEED non-realtime fighting to make it an RPG? I think a game like Shenmue/Bioshock/Fable are all RPG's. They allow a user to take on a role and guidle/build up that characeters abilites. Maybe there are no Learning trees/item equiping as much as a traditional RPG has, but it still has those tools and features, only done differently. Quite honestly, with what RPG stands for, ANY game is a RPG. |
Valke
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Quite honestly, with what RPG stands for, ANY game is a RPG. Oh please can we not get into that neck-bearded argument?  I do agree with Adelle though in hating the sub-genre dividing. |
OneNerdyGirl
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@ Valke and Flash739 I don't think we can say any game is an RPG only because then where do we go in categorizing our games? There are many games that fit into more then one slot which makes it hard to pin down what we want to call them. Are the adventure RPG, action RPG, fighting RPG? At that point I think the RPG elements become moot points and lose out to whatever else they may be called. |
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