Interesting JRPG article @IGN and Japanese responses to them!

Top 10 Ways to Fix JRPGs

Most of the complaints in here are all about dumbing an RPG down so much that its just not fun at all IMO! All they want is total easy-mode with hand-holding the entire way! All their complaints can be said the same about US RPGs too...its always some burly guy that only wants to kick butt or too much drab-gray textures, and absolutely no storyline thats worthwhile to read...heh

~then~

Japan's 2ch. Replies To RPG Complaints

Quote :

"Oblivion and Fallout fanatics are exponentially more annoying than any Final Fantasy fanatic."

"Hey foreigners: we find your first-person shooters boring as shit. What do you say to that?"

"When I see all the 'sniping' and corpse-desecrating 'teabagging' going on in US games, the thought of what what foreigners do when they get mad [in real life] freaks me out."

"Japanese RPGs are created for the express purpose of letting one experience the blooming of their full powers from a total zero starting point. They're necessary for keeping public order in Japan."

"Okay, so give us some foreign RPGs that are more interesting than Japanese ones. I just don't find foreign RPGs interesting at all."

"Oblivion's okay, but foreign games lack subtlety. They lack detail, and the character design and stories are bad."

"Americans can't understand complexity so a lot of the best stuff doesn't get translated. Like Megami Tensei"

"I call 'cultural differences'!"

"Show me an American-made RPG that satisfactorily addresses all of these complaints."

"Do foreign companies even make RPGs anymore? The only games that come to mind are first-person shooter action games. If we followed this 'advice' to the letter they'd have us making Grand Theft Auto clones."

I totally agree with all the Japanese responses quoted! US RPGs are mostly crap compared to a good ole' JRPG. On occassion a good one comes along but very rarely, and most are as the last quote described it! Ultimately liek many others have said where I found this, its all about cultural difference and both JRPG and WRPG could use a slight face-lift in how things are handled but not enough to where they should mimic each other!

"Americans can't understand complexity so a lot of the best stuff doesn't get translated. Like Megami Tensei"
No doubt. I often felt like I was an adopted American while playing WoW. " Dude, kill 50,000 boars. Why? why not?" followed by " You have completed a quest that lacks an depth or connection to a larger story congratulations, here's a item that odds are is worthless to you "
FFXI, you finish CoP and ZM you know you accomplished something and often felt a little sad that that story was over. Heck, even the cap quest had more depth then anything in any US rpg.

One of the comments complained how JRPGs recycle everything...cept americans are even worse at it. Do I dare count how many WW2 games there are?

I think that article is bang on.

When's the last time we put out anything original or revolutionary?

400 years ago?

Has nothing to do with revolutionary or even originality, it has to do with most modern Dev companies being lazy and lacking any talent. While yes, I agree with a bunch of the comments, some are quite wrong and I dare say it's specifically because of console based western games. I've yet to see any western developed RPGs on consoles with depth. PC on the other hand is a totally different ballpark.

Baldur's gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1, Neverwinter Nights 1, KOTOR. All of them had very in depth background stories, plot development, and in a few of them, character development. I think they just aren't looking at the real meat of RPGs produced in the west. Now granted, the vast majority of RPGs being developed here are trash and I think that's more an issue with the development teams but to say that No Western RPGs can match the story, character design, or depth of a Japanese one is flat out wrong. Even the half-assed attempt from Bioware's Dragon Age is good, it just doesn't keep the pace going. Too much combat, not enough story/plot.

In fact, I'll go one step further and say that no japanese developed RPG has matched the development, story, and depth of Planescape Torment. We're talking about possibly the best and most original RPG I've seen to date. Each character (even several of the NPCs) had a fully developed background and story, not just the main one and the love interest. They didn't require CGI to make the story work. There was no requirement to grind (hell, you could play through almost the entire game without combat) to advance your character. Even the end boss was crazy unique and very well developed.

The difficulty of the game/hand holding isn't just western games. The vast, vast majority of video games made these days by any company are far easier than the ones made 15 years ago. Go load up a ROM of a classic game. You'd be surprised how much more difficult it is. Pick up Demon's Souls for the PS3. Easily the most difficult game I've played in years. Very challenging to get started but once you get into it, it eases up. Problem is, players don't want hard games anymore and make it obvious with the sales. The first ninja gaiden game for the xbox (not 360) was hard enough that people actually complained about it being too hard and flooded the forums about how it sucked because it was too hard. Oddly enough, the game wasn't that hard overall.

Our industry as a hole are lazy and lacking any talent.
Cars, house, goverment, Banking, everything North American.
Not just the gaming industry.


85% of our population are total twits.
Thats why we invented twiter. Lol (jk)


Plus we ripe the asian Mmos very hard in Amarican web site's.
I think they have the right to do the same about ours.
(if we can't take the heat dont give it out)


I look at nintendo only and what they have done in the last few years and i can see why Japanies have pride.


And thats the pointe
They have pride in well devloped products that have real value.

But thats just my opinion. I respect yours.

Oh I don't disagree with any of that. I've felt for a long time that the management of western companies is to blame for a great number of the MMO flops we've had over the past 5 years.

Case and point, any MMO developed in the past 5+ years has been cut short towards the end of development. I cannot understand why they will fund the development of a MMO for years and then, when it's close to being done, cut it short by a measly 6 months and doom it to failure. One would think, after the blazing failures of AoC, War, Vanguard, etc that it should be painfully obvious to not do that, but it keeps happening over and over again. I swear it's almost as if all they care about are box sales and don't give a flying fart about subscriptions and a lasting monetary gain. There is a reason that WoW is such a cash cow and it's because even when it was cut short and launched early, it still had long enough in the oven to survive.

There are some truth in that article, but most of them dont hit home cause the writer makes me feel like JRPG have a lesson to learn from our productions.

The way i feel about fallout3 and many American RPG's is. If you can't get it right. then i rather you leave it to my imagination, then to do it half assed. (Man! the running animation in that game sucked.)

Baldur's gate 2, Planescape: Torment ,Neverwinter Nights 1,and KOTOR had an in-depth well developed history prior to being turned into a game though to be fair. Baldur's gate Forgotten realms, Planescape : Torment= planescape , never winter nights Forgotten Realms ( I think, never played NWN). All three had a life in table top games before going to a video game format. As such I do not think it is fair to compare them to most rpg's out there as it was more the table top crowd that voiced what should be and not be in each. All the Dev team had to do was translate material that was already out there. I think Ravenloft would have made another good rpg but unfortunately it was not ment to be.
During my time on the Lejendary boards I had the pleasure of talking to Gary Gygax a few times. After leaving D&D behind he struggled to get Lejendary off the ground. I really wish it had happened. His desire was to have a mmo for the real gamers out there. He was a grumpy old man but you could really see that he felt MMO's where the natural evolution for table top games. He did release Lejendary as a table top but I think he was truly disappointed. Had he managed to get it off the ground in a proper way I doubt we would be having a discussion about the merits of American rpg's / MMO's.
With KOTOR you once more have most of your history and mythology already plotted out in movies, books, Saturday morning cartoons.
I still say most Jrpg's blow the US out of the water for originality even if it tends to be heavily anime based / teen angst filled. Most people think FFVII is the definitive example of a JRPG, I have always preferred Wild Arms and FFIX for story . I just think the Jrpg's spend more time on original story creation. The US tends to rehash a few basic plot devices. That is just my opinion though.

I can agree with you about halfway on the pre-existing IP/tabletop part. Yes it's nice to have a fleshed out world with it's own history, but the individual stories and plot of the characters are all the Dev team. It's like FF12 was in the same world as tactics but still failed to captivate my attention. KOTOR I don't agree with you. It's got even less backstory from the IP because it's not connected to the main story or it's time period. Once again, it was the dev team that created the characters and history for them, then gave the game a great story with a decent amount of character development (more than most jrpgs). Also look at all the older TSR RPGs based off various IPs that failed in story compared to japanese developed RPGs at the time. Eye of the Beholder based in Forgotten Realms (easily one of TSR's most developed properties at the time) under Waterdeep (think that's the name of the city) vs Final Fantasy IV (II US). Even though there was already a very, very in depth background story and history available for Eye of the Beholder, it was hardly used. It's all on the development team to create the story and characters, IP is at best a very basic guideline.

A big, big thing to remember is the vast number of japanese developed RPGs vs the number of western produced ones. The numbers are skewed quite a bit by it, but I bet the % of good RPGs would be close to the same between the two. It's obvious that the RPG market didn't die down as badly as it did over here, which is a very good thing. Always hated how the number of western companies making RPGs died after a certain time period.

And yes, Gary rocked. He came to a con that my friends and I hosted, even ran an 8 player session for ~3 hours. The rest of the time he spent in his hotel room drinking martinis and confusing people when they'd ask how Drow was pronounced. Pretty awesome guy.

I'll agree with you on individual character story development. I ment more the world and all of its supporting back ground for those games was more or less already developed and required less time to flash out then say a fresh game.
I agree with you on FFXII..I can't finish it. The story just does not hold my interest.
Gary was one in a million. He was awesome to talk to as long as you talked about what he wanted to talk about. Go off topic a bit and he would let you know better.

Ya he was one cool cat, but the very definition of eccentric.

I can see the help having the backstory gives, but it's just a tool to be used (or ignored). If anything, it normally tends to be more restrictive than healthy. I seem to remember Bioware going crazy with the rule changes to the point where they decided to stop making DnD based games so they would have full control over things.

I still say it's a combination of the current developers and their financial backing that's caused the lackluster games in the west over the past decade. It doesn't help that almost every one of the classic good dev companies have either gone out of business or gotten bought out, which just makes the RPG market look so bleak. To say the west has never had any RPGs on par or superior to japanese RPGs is just uninformed and naive at best; it's just that we haven't had many recently (good or bad ones, there just aren't many western RPGs being developed these days).

Quote :

To say the west has never had any RPGs on par or superior to japanese RPGs is just uninformed and naive at best; it's just that we haven't had many recently (good or bad ones, there just aren't many western RPGs being developed these days)

I will agree with you that the west has had some fairly well made RPG's. ( I do disagree about having prior source material but we all have our opinions ) Most studios not only in the west but world wide have switched to a quick profit format. It takes less time and effort to churn out a fps then it does to develop a solid rpg.
I think the reason some people give the Jrpg's more clout is that the eastern market still supports this form of escapism. While here in the west we see more and more fps titles being churned out. I love Rpg's and as most titles I play have come from Japan I have to place my support behind them. If the west developed more quality RPG's I would not hesitate to play them just because of some silly geographical preference. Good games are good games regardless of who makes them.

Right, so like I was saying, the West isn't making as many RPGs (because they are stupid) as the east. This in turn reduces the amount of breakaway titles and lowers the overall experience with making RPGs in the first place. Add on to that the sheer numbers of Western RPG developers vs Eastern and it just gets worse. Back to the tabletop gaming thing, I can easily see how the overall decline of the tabletop market since the early 90s has hurt the video game RPG market. Oddly enough, Bethesda and now Bioware may easily be onto something with DLCs and the money that can be made off them, expanding the profit from solid RPGs made by western developers. Now if only Bioware's content for the DLCs was on par with Beth's.

On the topic of IPs tho, I think the older tabletop RPG IPs are being overlooked and it's just pure fail. Yes, I'm crazy bitter that Microsoft killed Shadowrun. That easily coulda lead to a solid video RPG franchise and would make a great world for MMOs. Rifts and Earthdawn are two other IPs that could seriously have a good shot at being good MMOs too. I think overall, there's much more freedom in tabletop RPG IPs for developing MMOs than movie or book IPs tbh. Hell, even Fallout was originally based off a tabletop game.

Don't get me started on Shadowrun. It could have been what WoW is and been worth playing unlike WoW. Same with Earthdawn..I miss my Windling troubadour . I hate to say it but I think Rifts would have worked as a straight rpg , non-mmo. I just think a lot of the content would have to have been axed. ( like juicers) But if they did Big Brain I know I would be the first to check the janitor closet . :P
Wow, just went to see if Earthdawn or Palladium where still in production. Both appear to be alive and kicking with Earthdawn being in 3ed. Palladiums site is as jumbled as ever but it has me thinking it is time for my son to become a table top gamer.

Last I looked at Palladium was a few years ago and they were desperate for money and were on the verge of going under. Good to hear they are still floating around tho. Palladium, Rifts, TMNT, Robotech...many, many years spend in those worlds. Not as much as Shadowrun or classic ADnD 2nd Ed, but still a lot of time.

I agree with the too much info part on Rifts, which is why you don't start in North America. It'd work better if they started someplace smaller and expanded from there. Just the mass amount of OCCs/RCCs alone would be too much. I think with proper streamlining it could work out well. Most of the classes could be condensed into something akin to talent trees/builds (various flavors of juicer for example), but it'd take a good deal of work.

Shadowrun would be good too. Free world, sci-fi with magic and races; it's even a classless system. I'm pretty sure it could even work well with PVP. Kinda lacking areas to explore if you base it in seattle, sadly.

Earthdawn would be just about the best one I think. It's very unique fantasy with a solid background story and fantastic options for Bosses/Sub-bosses (horrors ftw!). The multiclass, skill based system could work out pretty well too, but it'd take a lil work i think.

Wiki for rifts says there is a movie in the works Could be really good..or odds are really bad.