He added: “So when it comes to the term ‘JRPG’, this is something that ties into this – these are RPG games that, in a sense, only Japanese creators can make with their unique sensitivity when it comes to creating these experiences. “I think it’s certainly something that should be celebrated moving forward, and someone should actually aim to make a ‘king of JRPGs’ game to express that. As Japanese game creators, we’re very proud of the actual term JRPG.”
We asked Kamiya if he’d be offended if people started using the term ‘J-Action’ to describe games like Bayonetta. “On the contrary, I’d be very proud if you used that term,” he replied. “It’s more focused than the broad genre of action, and it highlights the unique elements that only Japanese developers can make. So yeah, if you wanted to do that, go for it, we’d be proud more than anything else.”
Adding J- prefix to Japanese pop culture is not a new thing, we already have endearing terms like
- Jpop (Japanese pop music)
- Jrock (Japanese rock)
- JAV (Japanese Audio Visual collective)
- Jdorama (Japanese TV drama)
- Jmetal (Japanese metal music)
I would definitely welcome Kamiya calling his games J-Action.
It’s weird to claim that only Japanese creators can make JRPGs. That’s not true at all, it just implies a specific style of gameplay, not the country of origin.
This reminds me of the internet discussions around Avatar: The Last Airbender years back and whether it counted as anime or not.
I disagree with both article and your point. The J is unhelpful when we can just label them turned-based action. This is just an issue of grandfathering a genre which means very little, is incredibly decisive and even unhelpful. It’s easy to imagine someone who like Final Fantasy may like a game like LISA. But harder to suggest someone who like ~~Final Fantasy ~~ Dragon Quest will like Kingdom Hearts, Demon Gaze or Disgaea. Just split JRPGs into mechanical genres. Turn-Based Action, Action RPG, Turn/Tile-based Strategy.
This issue extends to more genres (Generally RPG and Action) but I think it’s probably the easiest one to start moving away from
“Turn-Based RPG” tells me even less than “JRPG” tho.
Yah exactly. Xcom is a turn based rpg and not even close to jrpg
Two things on this,
- X-Com can easily be classified a turn-based strategy rather than Turn-based Action
- This confusion still exists in JRPG. Why would you suggest Disgaea is a JRPG but Fire Emblem or X-Com isn’t?
Yah, you’re right, if you sub categorize it’s much clearer. For me JRPG is the format of classic final fantasy games where you can run around in an over world and then trigger battles that go into a turn based back and forth sequence. I suppose you would need to also say it has to come from Japan otherwise you would say Southpark stick or truth and fractured but whole are JRPGs and I don’t know if one would classify it as such.
There are plenty of turn based western RPGs that aren’t JRPGs, like the brand new Baldur’s Gate 3. If a game is a JRPG, I’m expecting an ensemble cast who each have their own special abilities and weapon type, and they each level up in more or less exactly one way, which I can’t control. Instead, I customize them through equipment, if at all. Dialogue may have choices, but it’s usually between choice A and choice B.
In a western RPG, I may have a party of characters or only control one, and when I level up, I get points to spend in whichever attributes I think I’ll get the most value out of for the build I’m going for. These skills may result in skill checks that open up different avenues for solving problems in the game than if I had invested in other skills, and these skill checks may come up in dialogue.
Of course, J or not, the reality of the world is not so binary, and many games have some but not all of these traits or make them more difficult to define, but the J does tell me something.
I know what you mean but what you’ve done is just define two sets of games with varying differences in mechanics. So only WRPGs can assign attributes and JRPGs must have ensemble casts? There are many components of games that can transcend genres. A racing game like Mario Party can have an ensemble cast with unique abilities, A game like Sims can have attribute spending to create a player build. Locking these to genres doesn’t help understand as you suggest but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying.
It’s much easier to used these parts as extra descriptors and even better when you also add perspectives
- BG3: An turn based strategy [with complex choice]
- Valkyria Chronicles: A turn based strategy [with player recruitment]
- Disgaea: An turn based strategy [with unlockable job systems]
- Wargroove: A turn based strategy [with resource management systems]
I’d even prefer “Earthbound-inspired RPG” as thats more clear on what I’m going to be playing
I shortened the definition for the sake of not writing a book, but the point is that no one game will satisfy all of the criteria of a genre, but they evoke a common set of responses and scratch a similar itch. The genre would be more anchored to early Final Fantasy titles than Earthbound.
I wasn’t suggesting all games should be labeled “earthbound-inspired”, the term JRPG is so broad that just suggesting it’s inspiration is more informative.
But then it’s only informative to people who’ve played that game, as opposed to people who’ve played that genre. Far more people have played a JRPG than people have played Earthbound.
This just goes back to JRPG being vague and not giving any real info anyway.
If I told you I like Dark Souls which is arguably a JRPG or a more obvious Earthbound, why would it be better to say ah, “Disgaea or Kingdom Hearts are JRPG, you’ll like them”.
I’d say there is a general vibe to JRPGs that you can’t really get at by just describing the combat system.
It’s easy to imagine someone who like Final Fantasy may like a game like LISA. But harder to suggest someone who like Final Fantasy will like Kingdom Hearts
If anything, I’d say the opposite. Even setting aside the developer and series overlap, I would expect a Final Fantasy fan to be much more receptive to Kingdom Hearts than to LISA. While classic Final Fantasy may be closer to LISA mechanically, FF and KH are working in a related tradition that LISA is a bit farther from. There’s connective tissue between JRPGs that go beyond their mechanics, and this is part of why FF as a series has gone between so many radically different systems while still feeling united in some way. JRPG may not be a perfect term, but it carries historical reality, not just bland mechanical descriptions. If you look at music for example, genre titles are just as often describing the scene something came up in (or is emulating) as they are describing the sound itself. If genres are to give us helpful groupings of games that are related to one another, just describing their bare mechanics isn’t enough on its own.
Ah that’s my bad, when I think about FF I still think of the earlier games but the newer games aren’t in that bandcamp. Should have suggested dragon quest
Then we shouldn’t call them JRPGs.
Yeah, I played one of the best JRPGs ever last year and I am pretty sure it was not Japanese.
We’ve got Sea of Stars coming this year, for instance.
How are we even having this discussion in a world where Cosmic Star Heroine exists…
JAV (Japanese Audio Visual collective)
emm… I think JAV means completely different. I thought it was japanese adult video?
I’m pretty sure OP was joking
Lol at your jav definition
I heard that in the late 2000s the western gaming press had a very strong dislike for JRPGs, which led to Japanese developers treating the term as derogatory. And while I still think that ideally we’d have better terminology that would try to capture the differences between the games rather than their place of origin (the most famous distinction being that “western RPGs” usually let you create your character and treat them as a blank slate in the story, whereas “JRPGs” usually put you in control of a predefined character with their own motivations and actions in the storyline), I think it’s nice that nowadays there are developers who are actually proud of the term “JRPG”.
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There was a strong dislike of JRPGs and Japanese games in the 2000s.
Development struggles
From what I heard is, during the shift to HD development in early PS3 360 era, many western devs switched to use Unreal engine, while Japanese devs were sticking to their in house engines. But, in house engines were not cheap nor easy to build / maintain, so they struggled to recoup their expenses.
One of their strategies is to make their games more appealing to the west, but they were kinda doing it from the lens of what they think American games are appealing, so we get games that weren’t universally loved, like
- Quantum Theory: Koei’s Gears of War-kinda clone
- DmC: kinda split the fanbase
- PS3 era Silent Hill games
- Neverdead: WTF
- Yakuza games: they were marketed as if they were GTAs
Inafune was partially right, although hyperbolic, saying that Japanese games are dead. They were definitely struggling to find an identity.
Squeenix’s outputs
Then there’s Square Enix during PS3 era that published these games, many were received poorly
- FF13: convoluted story, L’cie, Fa’lcie
- NieR: reviewers stuck at fishing minigame, and the whole gameplay was just boring
- Star Ocean Last Hope International: Lymle, kay
- Front Mission Evolved
It didn’t help when we got bangers like Mass Effect trilogy, Skyrim, Fallout 3. So Square definitely disliked the JRPG term. However if you were to ask smaller Japanese devs at the time, e.g. ATLUS or Nihon Falcom, they’d probably prefer the term, because their ‘niche’ games (at the time), sold quite well while Square struggled.
Not a really descriptive term anymore
But you’re right, JRPG is non-descriptive when it comes to reviews. I’d prefer that reviewers have a small box that lists out the mechanics of the game, e.g. turn-based, random loot drops, predesignated character, linear dungeons, etc. But even nowadays reviewers are recommending games like Jedi Survivor, while the game is still a broken mess, which made me wonder what’s the point of reviews anymore?
It’s great when the devs like the term, but it barely helps anyone when reviewers use it. Not to mention the political tension when they use the term JRPG for games developed by Chinese or Korean devs.
Of course I haven’t mentioned that some reviewers were just racists fucks. Also it’s the period when Famitsu will just give any games 40/40 if the publishers bought enough advertisements from them, FF13 got 39/40, and Square was probably wondering why the games were not well received outside Japan
I think it doesn’t truly mean “Japanese RPG’s”, even today. There are lots of Japanese games that don’t get called JRPG’s even though they are RPG’s or have those elements (there is ambiguitiy in what an RPG is too, admittedly), like Resident Evil games and Dark Souls games and Zelda games and Pokemon. Dark Souls especially, since they have the character building and stats as well as the roleplaying.
People don’t call Elden Ring a JRPG because JRPG is supposed to mean one thing but really it carries a lot connotations about mechanics, graphics, and the derogatory connotations about quality.
And Pokemon! Pokemon is very clearly a JRPG in the mechnical and graphics sense, but it doesn’t typically get called a JRPG. I think this is because of the negative connotations of JRPG, personally.
And on the other hand we have things like Chained Echoes, which is in all mechanical and graphical ways is a textbook JRPG, except it’s not made in Japan at all, but rather inspired by Japanese games.
I agree this is complicated, but I found Jimquisition’s video on the topic really persuasive. I recommend that one even for people normally don’t jive with Jimquisition’s style.
Within any group, there will always be some who don’t find a term offensive even while others do, but I think probably the best outcome in this case is for the general populace to move away from the term, while leaving space for Japanese video game devs to reclaim it and use it themselves if they wish to.
Maybe it will truly lose the negative connotations with time, but I don’t think we’re there yet, when people are only just starting to sometimes acknowledge it ever had those connotations in the first place.
Granted, most genre words are vague and confusing as hell - JRPG isn’t special in that sense - but most don’t have the racist history/implications or negative connotations. And when I try to think of another genre label that is used as an insult, the first that comes to mind is Visual Novel, which is another one that is heavily associated with Japan.
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It does have a nicer ring to it than “eurojank”.
I think it’s generally agreed that pretty much all our genre naming conventions are bad and alternatives exist. https://youtu.be/uepAJ-rqJKA has a pretty good description of an alternative, where you describe games by their core reason for play as opposed to mechanics or camera perspective
Interesting watch, thanks for sharing.
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J action sounds right for metal gear rising and Bayonetta. It’s a lot better then trying to call it camera style common verb like fps, TPS. Our genres should really start focusing on player experience rather than basic mechanics.
