Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya thinks Japanese devs should be proud of 'JRPG'
Bayonetta director Hideki Kamiya thinks Japanese devs should be proud of 'JRPG'
The history behind the term is complex, as is each developer's thoughts on it
I love JRPGS. Not every game has to be open-world and often they're worse for it because they have no focus and rely on you doing a handful of repetitive tasks.
I prefer games with established characters over blank-slate character creator types. The worlds in Bethesda games are so generic bc every interaction has to account for whatever the player chooses to be.
Geralt, Wolf, Aloy, and Author Morgan inspire me to think about pathos and motivation. The dragonborn and tarnished are just coat-racks to hang armor on.
Spoilers Below for Sekero and Elden Ring
By the end of Elden Ring, I go and talk to Roderika and she'll tells me she's decided to burn alive in solidarity with Hewg, and I'm like wow, so sad, anyway... can I get some of that spirit tuning? Meanwhile, I've never platinumed Sekiro despite many playthroughs because I can't inhabit a version of Wolf that betrays Kuro.
I prefer games with established characters over blank-slate character creator types.
I think I never disagree so much with something hahaha.
The dragonborn and tarnished are just coat-racks to hang armor on.
Well, for me here is just a question of creativity and how much you want to put in your character. Personally, I can´t play a lot of these games with established characters cause they aren't me, they are they and anything I do will not change the fact that he is Gerald with his history, motivations, and willingness, so why do I play exactly? Just to see what will happen cause in the end he will still be Gerald, not me, not my character.
Playing with established characters is great if you like reading other people's stories and care about them.
Playing blank characters is great if you are creative and can make up stories of your own.
I'd like blank characters more if games were made so I actually have agency in the world and my choices actually mattered, but I've yet to find such a game. Most of the time you're a generic hero and the entire world revolves around you for no reason, and everyone is waiting for you to do their chores while also spoon-feeding you the entire content of the game, which takes me out of the story and shatters my suspension of disbelief.
Like, in Skyrim I became the head of Hogwarts while only knowing one or two basic spells. It's hard to play a role when the game itself doesn't care about you and gives you everything no matter what.
In my opinion, games with established characters aren't RPGs at all. How the hell am I supposed to role play some character with their own personality, background, story, and thoughts? As opposed to making your own in a Bethesda game that actually truly allows you to role play anyone.
Nothing wrong with games with established characters, but calling them RPGs is simply nonsensical to me.
Have you played Dragon Age: Origins? It's still the best RPG with the most character creation freedom that manages to tell an amazingly immersive story where you can connect with the world and the characters like no other games can
I have played that game. Did you notice that the character creation freedom only led to a set number of outcomes?
This is a really interesting take, I've never thought about RPGs this way. I'm guessing this is why Witcher 3 is my favorite game of all time, followed by Red Dead Redemption and and GTA V.
Thanks for giving me a new take on this.
Aloy is the most generic, boring character in recent video game history, and the Horizon games are just generic open world action games with a predictable story. Probably the most over hyped, overrated games of the last ten years.
Wait... they were not proud of JRPG's before ?
There is some contention around the terms "JRPG" and "WRPG" in Japan.
In Japan they don't really make the distinction and just call both "RPGs". However in the west there is a distinct genre difference between the character-focused, often anime-themed, story driven games that we call JRPGs and the more world-focused, free-form, choices-matter games we call WRPGs
There were a surprisingly large amount of Japanese developers that felt slighted because at a glance it seems like there are a ton of people that profess their love for RPGs but don't like RPGs made in Japan.
Yoshi P, game directory for FFXIV and FFXVI, famously decried the term. Which is probably why FFXVI has basically no RPG elements.
There was a pretty strong niche of Japanese devs who were decrying the genre pretty heavily. I remember hearing about that after (notorious asshole) Phil Fish made some pretty harsh comments on japanese games something like 10 years ago.
So happy he disappeared from game dev, could not have happened to a nicer guy.
Pretty sure they have been. Dragon Quest releases are practically a national holiday in Japan.
Kamiya just loves coming out of the woodwork every once in a while to say some weird shit, so who knows what this is supposed to mean.
Definitely a backlash against FFXVI https://www.gamesradar.com/final-fantasy-visionary-yoshi-p-really-doesnt-like-the-term-jrpg/
For the past maybe but eastern art in general is built on genre archetypes that sort of have bad habit of shallow cloning.
Proud to have their own specfic rpg genre i suppose is something to be proud of even if again it does tend to lock game dev into a lane
now we're talking.