TL;DW: Until we have something better to move toward, saying "don't say JRPG" isn't good enough. Let's start trying to find a better way to describe the games we love. And when we do find a better option, we can finally stop having the "RPGs not from Japan can't be JRPGs" arguments. That'll be the day.
I think as you alluded to in the video “Jrpg” is kind of a redundant term. Maybe something more descriptive of the actual games like “stat based adventure games” would be better (obviously something a bit snappier though)
@@TheSupaman98 False. JRPG denotes a style. Just like country music. If you're from new York but you sing like Johny Cash, you're a country singer from an urban mega city. If you're from the countryside, but you play thrash metal, you're not country, you're metal.
@@kennethguinto4862 well RPG is just way too broad a term. We need to subdivide it in someway to keep classifications meaningful. The idea of a genre is to in a sort title describe the sort of things you can expect out of a game you are looking to get. If you put every game with elements of an rpg into the same genre the term would be functionally useless. Thus we need to subdivide the genres. I would actually argue that games with turn based (or atb, or conditional turn based) belong in a different genre category than rpgs with action based combat. And of course I do disagree with the original posters claim that jrpgs are the best rpgs (despite loving the genre) I tend to find CRPG's to have plots that are much more profound (I don't think I've ever played another game as profound and philosophical as planescape torment) and of course I love tactical turned based combat I consider it to be the superior form of rpg combat imo.
@@Yurothehotot nah we dont give a shit on western rpgs what sub genre they are . We can do the same on RPGs form japan. End of story ... It is seriously NOT that hard. if someone tells me This is a western RPG NO one gives a shit if its whaterever.. But the moment something came from japan If plus one the following >>> OHHHHHH JRRRRRRPPPPPPPGGGGG No sir... sit down.
I have always used the term jrpg and it was always a positive term to me. And I'm an old fart who's been in this genre for a really long time. Never before have I been aware that there was any negative judgement in it. I won't stop using it because it was never an insult; it was a description of a very specific flavour of game design.
I'm an old fart too, and I remember there actually being a time when Jrpg was bandied about in a negative light. If it wasn't for the AAA game industry shooting themselves in the foot with the types of big soulless open world games they make, JRPG would still be used as a pejorative.
I asked a friend whose wife is a Japanese gamer. She said growing up they were just RPGs, didn't hear of J rpg until she came to the states. But it was not negative to her just descriptive. So im gonna keep using it because it seems to offend no one. Yoshi p seems to have hada personal beef with some elitest devs back in the day. But when your average gamer hears jrpg we think of the best games ever made, in the golden snes era and now
@@SerfsUp1848 You realize that it is, right? We already have these designations. jpop, kpop, jrock, krock, etc? You calling something white trash is not the same because you are equating an actual slur to the word "Japanese". And thats pretty fucked up, yo.
You can generally tell where a game was designed by the look and feel of it. Although a few RPG's made in other regions have and do try to successfully mimic the style of Japanese made RPG's. As someone was there in the 80's and 90's we used the term JRPG to signify that it was a game that was worth playing and properly designed and made. I always saw it as more of a badge of honor or signifying that it was a higher quality game than non JRPG's. I have never heard of it being used as derogatory.
@@SuperDerek Same. I didnt particulary hate WRPGs, but the stigma I had of them were that they were all traditional and generic european fantasy set in the middle ages with little focus on telling a grand story. Until Elder Scrolls Morrowind, and eventually, Mass Effect, I very much saw JRPGs as a distinction of quality immersion and progressive fantasy story-telling, despite the manga-inspired tropes. It wasnt until these games, that I began to reconsider WRPGs as being worth my time.
It has more to do in the 2000s and early 2010s. Especially coming off the heels of ff13 for yoshi p, I remember so many game outlets outright being hostile. While that game has many flaws and I myself don't like the game, the response was so toxic and unnecessary.
I’m sad and confused about that interview. Not only JRPGs had a good connotation since the 90s everywhere I go, I find it weird they don’t want to “own” the term. It’s like being mad at Samba and Bossa Nova being called “Brazilian Music”. It’s far from all of what Brazilian musicians do, and it could be reductive in some contexts, but hell yeah, that’s Brazilian music, and it had a huge influence all over the world. I don’t want to dismiss any bad experiences Japanese developers had, but the feeling I got was more that Yoshi P wanted to break Final Fantasy from the JPRG box. They even name dropped GTA in that interview. I think he wants to show that Japanese devs can do more great stuff that’s not traditionally associated with Japan. IMO FromSoft already did that, but they seem to want mass appeal, not niche excellence. That’s fair, even if it makes me sad. But I still have a sliver of hope this will be an amazing game despite comparisons to God of War, which I don’t like.
The fact that it used to be considered negative but is not currently viewed with the same malice and has a much more positive edge is more than likely whats going to continue to keep that acronym around for a long time. I do not currently have a better suggestion to apply a layer on this to help but I like your suggestions. Thank you for discussing this as it is an important conversation to have. I did not know it was considered to be a negative term and I think that may have surprised a lot of people that it was.
Are people really saying JRPG is a bad term now? I think some are fundamentally misunderstanding what Yoshi P was saying really. The term was applied to the genre early but was never used in Japan as they're, of course, just RPGs to a Japanese audience. However, it gradually was treated with disdain by some Western audiences after the Playstation 1 boom period for the genre. In the mid 2000s, it was treated as a dirty term, a marker of outdated game design, infirior to Western titles which moved towards 'true open world' and more grounded real time combat. Classic games like Lost Odyssey generally recieved pretty mixed reviews despite being so great just because their style was seen as being dated. Turn-based being the biggest thing here, often seen as dated and existing just due to technological limitations rather than the reality of it merely being a style of gameplay. There is of course a xenophobic tint towards all of this too where those same criticisms are not attached to Western games that do the same thing (FPS games have hardly evolved all that much). However, the term now has more positive connotations, JRPGs are generally enjoying a second boom period, and we, fans of the genre, have been enjoying a renaissance of sorts the past few years, and even really tradional anime style JRPGs like Persona 5 (with turn based combat) and throwback titles like Octopath have entered the mainstream. It's an important debate to be had, and it should invite us to look back at the games that were dismissed all those years ago by Western game reviewers with a new critical lens, but the term itself was not the issue and Yoshi-P was talking about a point in time and not today. Even some games now proudly display the term in their marketing, with JRPG inspired games like Chained Echoes, and the recent re-release of Tales of Symphonia proudly displays 'JRPG classic' on its box.
I don't think that Yoshi-P was trying to say that "JRPG" as a term should be dropped. He just doesn't want Final Fantasy series to be put under JRPG umbrella. That's because from his interactions with fans and media, JRPG is defined as (and I quote): "..speaking with fans and media about their image of the franchise, they would always give the same answer: that it's turn based, that it's anime like, these teenagers saving the world, 'very JRPG' ". It's pretty clear that he and his team want to make Final Fantasy games that evolve over time and are not shackled in chains by predefined characteristics.
Yeah, no. Taking Yoshi-P too seriously will get you into trouble - and many of the rules he enforces in games like FFXIV is because they have laws in Japan that people can sue companies if players in their game causes injury to that person's honor. That's why he's very sensitive to language and he's careful about the terms. However, much like I won't stop using the okay hand signal while diving because 4chan trolled people into thinking it's racist, I'm not going to stop calling this genre by it's name, JRPGs - Japanese Role Playing Games - because some a-holes decided to use it to denigrate people or some other a-holes decided to be offended on others behalf. It's a genre and word that has given me a lot of joy in my life, and I'm not changing it for anyone
@@ChronicSensei Especially the people that get offended on other people's behalf. Moral grandstanding is a plague in today's online discourse. If some people want to stop using the term that's fine but for me it's no different than saying ARPG or CRPG etc. I associate the term with a type of RPG I enjoy.
It was NEVER denegrated more than any other genre. The dudebros who trashed JRPGs, i clapped back by trashing cawadoodie and Madden. Yet FPS isn't an insult now.
Are K-pop and J-pop actually genres, or regional designations of... pop? Is pop music a genre, is it a collection of genres? A pop album - whether Korean or British - is likely to contain a danceable upbeat song and a ballad, are these two the same genre? There is still controversy and backlash when a British group or performer tries to market themselves as k-pop. But then when one makes "kawai pop" or "bubblegum pop" this doesn't seem to be too controversial. These naming conventions have issues.
This is such a ridiculous thing. It's a genre, and essentially a term of endearment for anyone who grew up with the 8/16/32 bit systems. It is NOT an insult, and just because a few people misunderstood it doesn't mean the rest of the world should name a GENRE of all things.
Having a problem with the term JRPG makes zero sense. People are just creating a false controversy. It just means "RPGs in the style of the classic Japanese RPGs". That describes the genre perfeclty.
personally i think this is stupid. jrpg, arpg, crpg are just terms to diferentiate subgeneres, theres nothing wrong with it and im gonna continue using it.
I think erasing the JRPG genre label would be pointless. Should we also start calling manga as comics? Should we also start calling anime as cartoons? (Side note: Japan calls American comics as "American comics". Because it is necessary and helpful to distinguish things influenced by a vastly different culture as being so. Because people who enjoy one aren't necessarily going to enjoy the other.) Deleting an already broad term such as JRPG to only use an even more broad term like RPG doesn't help anyone. And if you instead change the name to something else that means the same thing, that's also pointless. As you said, it's not gonna stop people who hate and denigrate the games from doing so, and it's just giving another name to the exact same thing.
Also, just to be clear (I know my post was a little dry), I do fully support you and understand you were just trying to offer suggestions since this is the conversation we're dealing with atm. I know certainly there will be people pushing back against you for just covering it at all, but that's not me.
I still wonder where YoshiP first heard the term JRPG in a negative "stuck" context that he has such a negative opinion on it, because for me, it represented what it directly means: A roleplaying game from japan with it's style in visuals, certain more cultural reflective tendencies and even thoughtful designed stories.
Most likely from some media outlet, maybe during an interview or something. I think the language barrier would have kept most player interactions limited during the timeline he was talking about years ago
I copy the exact same comment I posted on David's page: A more gameplay attuned term would be "Role Playing Novel". Actually, the meaning of RPG is in the name, just not the way you think it. You can't "Play the role" of an existing character. To roleplay is to pretend you're a fictional character, like your self-insert character in an tabletop game like D&D, or "true" RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. Now, from Japan (mostly) come the Role Playing Novels, or "DraQue"s (they literally named them after Dragon Quest, just like FPS were called "Doom Clones" way back when). Characters still have roles, they need their stats - Thieves need speed and agility, Mages need high magic prowess, Knights need physical prowess - but they are all predetermined characters in a long, sprawling novel narrative. Whether it's the turn-based RPN Final Fantasy, action combat RPN Tales of, or even the strategy RPN Fire Emblem, they all use RPG elements in a genre that is mostly an interactive novel adventure. The big problem is that Visual Novels are a genre much more recent than RPGs, that have their roots in the early to mid 80's. It's never too late to reinvent the wheel, though. Hell, JRPG isn't even the first term. Back in the 90's, people said "Computer RPGs" (a term still referred to as "CRPG" for the most classic RPGs where you come to roleplay and roleplay alone - and "Console RPGs". Septerra Core and Anachronox were advertised as a "Console RPG on a PC", while Shadowrun gave a very Computer RPG experience on the SNES and Mega Drive. When Microsoft entered the fray and games like KotOR and Fable were released on the Xbox, the terms changed. So yeah, Baldur's Gate is an RPG (or a CRPG), games like Deus Ex are Action RPGs because the roleplay is set through action, pure action games like Diablo and Dark Souls I like to call Build RPGs, Final Fantasy clones are RPNs, Monster Hunter and Yakuza are action games with heavy RPG elements, and Zelda is Action freaking Adventure.
Action RPG's, Turn Based RPG's, Narrative RPG's, Tactic RPG's, Western RPG's, Computer RPG's... They really aren't that different, and any of the bad feelings that come from being labelled as a JRPG come from people crapping all over them just because they don't like things like anime or turn based combat and the traditional aesthetics that come from those games. It really does feel like the developers of FFXVI are looking for acceptance from the wrong crowd and it's a shame, because there are a massive amount of people who have always loved and adored Roleplaying games from Japan...
JRPG isn't a demeaning term or a slur. Im 36 years old and JRPG came about as a way to differentiate between RPGs like Elder Scrolls and Final Fantasy. Im not certain why some Japanese devs took the term as gate-keeping or to look down on Japanese games, but I can assure you... Many of us simply used the term to denote the common tropes of RPGs we grew up fondly with from the Orient. Things like Turn Based Combat and a story about a group of young people who meet up to save the world or kill god. Im not fond of changing how everyone speaks because a few people are offended with what seems like over very little reason. In that interview, he said he just set out to make an "RPG" and found it offensive that people called them "JRPG" to separate them from other games. But this is ignoring that we do this with other games to. WRPG, SRPG, and CRPG are all in common use to differentiate types of RPGs because the genre is so huge. It sounds like he's being overly sensitive to me and not understanding the purpose behind said labels. For that reason, im not in favor dropping the j off of jRPG. Its too important at distinguishing a type of RPG that I grew up with and adore. Does he not know that the term WRPG or SRPG exists? JRPG doesnt mean your game is lesser. Its simply a way to further describe a style of game that originated in Japan. Notably, a turn-based game with lots of manga-inspired tropes such as young children banding together to save the world through friendship... Im 100% certain people who hate JRPGs use the term derisively, and stigmatize it, but thats ignoring the very large amount of people who grew up on and loved these games. JRPG is just a sub-genre of RPG. Would he be happier if they were all called "Dragon Quest -likes"?
of course it's not. Well, not for fans of JRPGs anyway. I'm interested in the discussion though because I think the current genre system has never made much sense and I'm interested in finding better options. :)
@@SuperDerek I think "better" is subjective. For me, I know and understand exactly what JRPG means because im old and was there when these terms were coined. When someone says JRPG to me, I know they arent telling me that a game is shit or that it was made in Japan. They are telling me that a game adheres to or plays like those RPGs I grew up playing on the SNES. That said, I can also understand why wRPG and jRPG is confusing to younger people who dont have that frame of reference. Thus the terms jRPG and wRPG hold little information to them as a descriptor. If these terms just came out today, JRPG could easily be used to denote games like Elden Ring. So for that reason, I can admit that these terms are dated and not exactly helpful as subgenre discriptors for anyone who isnt in their mid 30s yet. That said, I refuse to submit that the term JRPG is derogatory. It was never meant to be so. It was only used that way by those who hated JRPGs and turn-based combat. This was practically every journalist/game reviewer in the 2000s who didnt grow up playing Squaresoft titles. And its why a lot of us didnt really take stock in game reviews in magazines in the late 90s to mid 2000s. Because those people didnt like strategy combat and hated manga-tropes. Screw those guys.
Yep. And it was one that was hotly contested already _before_ Yoshi P weighed in on it. I'm just hoping we can get something better out of this discussion.
He's wrong. Being a developer doesn't instantly make him right. JRPG just denotes a style of RPG, based on dragon quest, and RPG denotes a style, based on D&D. And that's all she wrote.
Yoshi P in that interview didn't just say "it's offensive don't use the word". He was talking about how there's some sore feelings tied to it because of how it was used a while back, and that now the term gets used in a more positive light. Tried to cover that in this video, but it sucks his discussion has been sensationalized so much.
@@SuperDerek I think he's wrong about that though. I think he just saw some video from some haters like G4. But they always upset their audience when they did that. I can find a million videos of people bashing rap music, country music, or metal. None of those labels are insults though. Haters bash on other fanbases, they always have and will but they're not important and their opinions don't matter.
That's a fact. I'm mainly interested in this discussion of the genre name because of other reasons. The fact that nobody agrees on what is or isn't a JRPG, whether Action RPGs can be JRPGs, whether Western-made RPGs can be JRPGs, so many people want to gate-keep the term. I have purely selfish reasons for wanting to revamp the genre name system. :)
Regarding the "JRPG term controversy", I found an interesting take on Maximillian Dood's reaction video that I wanted to share with you: "About the JRPG thing, I have a bit of a unique perspective I'd like to share. I lived 8 years in Japan. Went over there to try and break into the industry... actually did it for a couple of years and worked at a very well-known company for a couple of years (not Square Enix). Anyway, I think the term JRPG was taken as offensive for Japanese developers for a number of reasons. It's not as simple as the negative connotations that sprung up at around the same time as FFXIII, though that's obviously a big part of it. What happens is that, for the longest time (and even today), they've used the term "youge" as a derogative for western games. They didn't even consider them "games" proper (see, "videogames", according to them, were "a Japanese thing" -- and I'm quoting Hideo Kojima here.) I was actually shocked at how disdainful the term "youge" actually was when I went there. Well, right at the time FFXIII came out, the Japanese game industry was declining rapidly in terms of market share. They needed to sell games in the west to survive, but they weren't doing it well. Today, the Japanese game industry is a cell-phone gacha fest, a shadow of its former self. Western developers were putting out console games, good ones, and selling gang-busters. And now Japanese developers were like "how are we supposed to compete with this? It's not fair! We don't have the budget, we don't have the sales!" And it's against this backdrop that the term JRPG began to be used. Regardless of the negative connotations it had over here, over there it was much worse, because 1) they were losing literally 90% of the market, 2) they'd always thought of themselves as making RPGs and 3) they had the term "youge" as an analog. So they automatically assumed that JRPG was as bad as "youge", and, especially as you're losing almost all of your market, that's gotta sting. What I think is that the term was being used negatively by some people at the start, but not all of them, and certainly it's become purely descriptive nowadays. But in Japan they resented the rebranding of the genre, and assumed it was like when they rebranded western games as "youge". The Japanese game industry narrative is this: "RPGs" were not intuitive and could not be enjoyed by a mainstream audience until the Great Yuji Horii came and made Dragon Quest; and they were a hit in Japan but not in the West, because the games were, in FF creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's words, too "complex" for Western audiences (nevermind that the genre originated in the West - but prejudice is never rational). However, thanks to the cutting-edge graphics pioneered by Final Fantasy, they started selling in the West, too. "Final Fantasy" is the big Japanese RPG franchise that sells in the West, too. Anyway, Yoshi P in particular has to have taken the JRPG classification personally, as he was one of the few Japanese gamers who actually did appreciate Western games. He played the original Ultima Online! He played Everquest! So for him to hear that term, and having "youge" as a point of reference, it must have really been awful. Its...complicated... Japanese society as a whole has both disdain and admiration -both superiority and inferiority complexes- with regards to the West. I would have trouble understanding it if I did not have very specific point of reference myself. Well, here's hoping someone takes the trouble to read this post, and that it helps shed some light on the issue."
These were an effect I manually created in my editing software during earlier episodes of The Game Collection. Unfortunately I don't think there's a single filter you could apply with an emulator that could accomplish that CRT look I did with visual effects. Glad you enjoyed the look though! :)
JRPG was never a dirty word in the US dating way further back than the source of this discussion began. The only time it ever got a semi-negative connotation was near the end of the PS3 era when dozens upon dozens of "JRPGs" dropped that were all anime trash. Really some of the worst games of the genre are the ones with flat panel characters popping up for dialogue. Stories that hit every single cliché but just happen to have passible mechanics. Japanese devs needs to do two things: 1) get over it. The term is one of endearment, love, and respect. 2) stop using truly terrible plots that are just a rehashed as most modern animes. Get back to the solid story telling and semi-character driven narratives of the 90's.
I can actually agree with this. Just leave the S silent but implied when saying JRPG, since no one will actually want to say out JSRPG, but everyone will still know what we are talking about.
Since the Japanese have their own term for cartoon and comic book, do they not have one for RPG that could be used? From what I can find via google they just use slightly japanified english terms for both video game and RPG. Although I can see a couple of "issues" or nuances in that or with a term like JRPG - One is I don't think they necessarily have to be made there to be a JRPG as it's a style that can be mimicked, as well as mixed to some extent with other styles (it already is a blend of east and west from the beginning) and one that has evolved over time as you alluded to at one point in the vid. The other is that it sort of summarizes an entire country which naturally has various sub cultures like any other country and which is reflected in different styles, under the umbrella term JRPG. But other genres have the same problem and you might have to specify with more or other words to find what you're looking for, such as FF-style or Mother-style.
Why is the term JRPG now a topic for debate like really Idk what started this it's just been on my feed. We have JPOP(Japanese POP) , KPOP(Korean POP) JROCK(Japanese Rock) it is a way for someone to express what they like without using something that is too broad. It's like if you just say you like pop or rock when talking to people they may talk about pop and rock that is more local to your part of the world or more main stream and you may not care about it at all. Same thing with RPGs like if you just say you like RPGs that is a very broad range where as if you said you like JRPGs it narrows it down more to what you are into. Lets take Derek's suggestion of Narrative-Driven RPGs that is still very broad term because TRPGs/SRPGs, Western RPGs JRPGs still fit into it. Like at the end of day these mini sub groupings like JRPGs, JPOP, KPOP, JROCK, TRPGs/SRPGs, Western RPGs are just terms that have been coined by people over the years to just make it easier to express what one is into. This all goes back to what I said at the start why is a topic for debate now.
Yep! Pretty much all of our options suck. So when people start demanding we use a different word to describe the games we love, have them throw their own hat in the ring with some better alternatives. I'd love to hear a real solution to this problem.
This discussion should die. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the term. This has only become "hotly debated" this week. Nobody used the term to look down on these games. People simply looked down on the games, the term notwithstanding. At a time where jrpgs are more popular worldwide than ever before, attacking the term is meaningless and downright toxic. It does nothing to lift up the genre.
Fans of JRPGs definitely have always used it as a term of endearment. One need only watch the latest viral Sessler Xplay clip of Baten Kaitos Origins gone viral to see how the word was used by the media back in the day. It's no wonder Yoshi P would have been bugged by the term. I still use the word and love it, but think this discussion could be a good chance to come up with some interesting alternatives that _could_ be better.
@@SuperDerek So, funny thing about that viral clip. They did absolutely drag that game through the mud and made a ton of blatantly racist comments. But NONE of the negativity was in association with the term JRPG, which was only briefly mentioned once. Everything was directed at the game and their culture and the term was entirely not a factor. People have been confusing the idea of "negativity torward X thing" somehow meaning "the term for X must be bad now". This is simply not how our language works. We need to call out bigotry and racism, but we must make sure to put our focus in the right places. Changing the term does not solve anything. These people would have been racist with or without the J.
I agree with everything in this video. Whatever term gets picked we don't need to let journalism pick it for us. The narrative focus sounds really great.
If anything, game journalists of the time were the ones who used "JRPG" as a derogatory word 15 years ago that got us into whatever this current pickle is.
It's a shame trying to just use the Japanese term for the genre like we collectively did with "anime" vs "Japanimation" probably wouldn't work, because RPG in Japanese is just... "aru pi ji", and I don't think purposefully using "Engrish" will be less insulting. The issue persists with my other idea, which was to name it in honor of the grand daddy of the subgenre in Japan, Dragon Quest, but that would ALSO be "Engrish" (Kuesto-RPG)
It's a matter of sensibilities. I think JRPG is fine for describing an RPG with distinctive Japanese sensibilities. NRPG also makes sense to describe Nihon sensibilities, if respect is the issue. But it's more than the games being focused on narrative, it's an all-encompassing, unique style that originates from Japan. I and many JRPG fans think it's a beautiful style, and some Western RPG fans just don't like it and never will. Changing what it's called will make no difference, those people will still refer to it with disdain. They'll still use whatever new word we choose to describe what they dislike about it. They'll never be happy with any RPG that doesn't appeal to their Western sensibilities. If Yoshi P wants to make a Western RPG, fine. He should just do a sword and shield RPG. From Soft did it, nobody looks at their games and categorizes them as JRPGs. What he wants is people to stop distinguishing between irrefutably different sensibilities, and that's not going to happen. He's making a game that is clearly aiming to meet Western sensibilities but it still has noticeable Japanese sensibilities and he feels insecure about that, so now he's trying to apply a moral standard to make people feel guilty for expressly disliking games with Japanese sensibilities, whether he realizes that's what he's doing or not. He should just accept that criticism is a reality that creators have to parse with. Some of it will help him improve as a creator and some of it will just stifle his creative spirit with expectations his own tastes don't align with. If people told him why they dislike JRPGs and he listened and aimed to improve, I believe his work should speak for itself, and if it's good enough it will raise the bar for how Western RPG fans perceive JRPGs as a style subgenre. There's no need to try and speed up that process by redefining the subgenre that defines the specific sensibilities on display in an attempt to trick people into accepting them. He wants people to see 16 as just an RPG, but people use subgenres. WRPG, JRPG, ARPG, TRPG, we all know what these are and what they mean and they're each as much RPGs as the other. 16 IS "just an RPG", but it clearly is also a mix of ideals between W and J, there's no hiding that from people who are going to dislike it for one or the other.
@Travis Yoshi P was involved in revamping FF14 after someone else screwed the pooch at launch, and is working on the upcoming FF16, but he wasn't involved in 15. And the people who play 14 love him for it.
I mean, I'm wondering how much of this could be a push by Square Enix as a sort of corporate push towards "Global" (i.e. American) Standards and trying to pull even further from Japan. Considering that 15 years ago comment, (about 2008 or so) and knowing what we do about American Gaming companies and industry personalities I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese had JRPG thrown at them by the western industry in a derogatory sense and they simply mistakenly got the idea that JRPG fans in the west were the same. The people I'm the American side of this industry definitely seem to have a bad habit of displaying a level of disdain towards Japanese and Korean products that steps farther than your usual "too much anime in this Japanese game" comments.
@@tatsumitwi348 yeah... I really wish it was more common knowledge that the corpo buzzards don't speak for us, they just follow the money. And I think SE is definitely showing signs of a follow the money mentality. Yoshi P did mention GTA5 in the interview his JRPG comment came from. I imagine there was probably some intermingling between well known respected game companies and SE probably endured a fair amount of snubbing from NA big wigs. They probably get tons of condescending questions from journalists who fancy themselves the authorities on quality. Just knowing how ugly it gets now that gaming is such a massive market, you're probably right.
I was thinking about it myself recently and one of the biggest thing that sets JRPG's apart to me are party mechanics and thought "Party-control" or "Party-based" RPG or PRPG was the first idea that popped into my mind. But it just doesn't sit well when exceptions do exist.
I don't see why JRPG shouldn't be used. They're Japanese RPGs. If you go to a sushi or hibachi place you wouldn't shy away from calling it a Japanese steakhouse? Would you? Any more than you would go to a place that serves predominantly Pasta based food items and not call it Italian. It just seems like needless nitpicking to have a problem with the term JRPG. Even the Soulsbourne type games, with their clear western inspired design choices, have enough Japanese DNA in their design that I consider them JRPGs. I don't think that JRPG causes any confusion or has any need to be so analyzed honestly
RPGs are such a diverse genre that oversimplifying it doesn't really do them justice, I don't see a lot of people talk about souls games as JRPGs, mainly because it doesn't fit into the idea of what people picture "JRPGs" to be (as in the standard laid out by Dragon Quest, group of heroes embarking on an adventure) I've also heard the term SRPG thrown around to describe games like fire emblem. If we can use SRPG, NRPG is also a good category :) great video as usual Derek
Souls-borne games are unique in that they are largely WRPGs that were created and have origin in Japan. This really muddys the waters of our sub-genre naming conventions. Because JRP and WRPG are both supposed to denote a style of game based on where they originated. Even there we had to create more terms like SRPG and CRPG to denote styles of games like Baulders Gate, Fallout 1&2, and Final Fantasy Tactics. However, denoting a style of game based on its origin is confusing to many people because they dont know what to call a JRPG made in the west like Echoed Chains or a WRPG made in Japan like Elden Ring. This is especially confusing for young people who werent alive or gaming when these terms first arose to denote a difference between radically different subgenres of RPG. To me, these designations make complete sense, but i recognize that is because Im 36 years old and was there when these terms first started gaining popularity as a means to describe characteristics of those games.
It is also weird especially since souls borne games take direct inspiration from dark fantasy Mangas like Berserk and even Ghibli anime movies. I find it weird that these games aren't called jrpgs since there are so many references to Japanese culture.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 yeah I personally can't think of a whole lot of western RPGs designed like souls games (aside from souls likes) if we're defining JRPGs as RPGs with their design and narrative influenced by Japanese culture then I'd absolutely put souls games under that umbrella
Nah, I will not stop using the term JRPG and even less coming from someone that works at SE. I had seen many other developers also using the term JRPG used to describe their games. The term these days are refereed to games that have certain characteristics. Many of them have the anime look on them for example.
I'm going to wait for the release of FFXVI before I say more to this, because I have a hunch that this is just to be used as an excuse for some some design choices in FFXVI, which will align it more with RPGs with western design.
@@SuperDerek MIght be, it could be a slight mistranslation and we all know how that goes. He said in the newest interview about FFXVI that Clive than earn more inventory slots, and I already said in the one video with differences between WRPGs and JRPGs, that the inventory works differently in both of them. That's why.
I also think, based upon the conversation I'm seeing here, if FF 16 is being pulled away from what are traditionally considered "JRPG" style design choices, then I'll have zero interest in it. The only games I buy anymore are Japanese, and I despise ALL Western RPGs. "JRPG" is a term I use respectfully to describe the sorts of games I want to play. I'm all for evolving genres, but only to a point. But certain aspects of game design are what give a series its personality. Final Fantasy was always turn based. Star Ocean and the Tales games were always action oriented, but still an encounter based system. Dark Souls using western ideas is one thing. It was a new IP when Demons Souls came out, so it made its own personality. Taking existing series such as Final Fantasy and undermining them by trying to make them like other series or other genres or based on Western ideas ruins the experience. That's where we got travesties like FF 12, 13, and 15. Square releases so many games and IPs that they can take the experimental nonsense they've tried to force into Final Fantasy for the last 20 years and put that into something else. I think it would go over much better if they kept FF the way it should be and save the generic action RPG crap for lesser titles. Also, I have zero respect for Yoshi P. if he plans to bastardize the FF series and the JRPG genre by moving it the direction being discussed here. If I wanted to play Western RPGs I'd play them. But I don't, so I don't
I've always found "JRPG/WRPG" to be really nebulous terms. I've been calling them narrative/linear and open RPGs instead for a while and I'd hope to see that catch on.
@@kaizokujimbei143 Yeah. I prefer JRPG meaning "RPG made in Japan" et al. Since they're such broad terms though that they aren't useful outside of shallow profiling.
Wasn't considered a negative, it was consider cool. People were playing JRPG, Listening to J-Pop and watching J-Horror back in the 90s, If you into cars you know what JDM is. Japan always been associated with cool and quality. That's not just any RPG that's a Japanese RPG.. It's like how people see South Korea now with K-pop and K-Dramas and Samsung but back then it was like Sony, Cars, Anime, Video Games. The 2000s was Japanese Horror movie boom. Weird to think JRPGs as a negative. I've heard Anime Games and Weebs games used as a negative but not Japanese RPG. I would have never found this channel if i was looking for some JRPGs to play.
You're never going to get fans of Western RPGs to go along with calling JRPGs "NRPGs", or even hear it without losing it in some cases. Because a lot of western RPGs are also big on writing and storytelling. You also can't group all RPGs that are big on story together, because they're still widely different. Linear vs. open storytelling being the obvious difference.
Yoooo!!! This Sexy Derek voiceover is fire 🔥 🔥 🔥!!!! I want more lol. But seriously, I’m a Hispanic American, and I see the term “JRPG” as a manner of defining masterclass style of games. But I also don’t really like being labeled and placed in a box, so to speak so I kind of see where he is coming from. But yea, the Japanese are examples of how to master something to a razor sharp edge. So when it comes to games, they make some of the best games ever.
Back in the 90s, before voice acting, you used to be able to give the main character and sometimes other character or your pets/binds a name. Often there wouldn't even be a canonical one pre-filled. And you do get character growth options, which weapons you choose, which abilities you level etc.
1. One guy's opinion isn't necessarily representative of all Jrpg developers in Japan, in my opinion. 2. Jrpg is an art style rather than a geographical product. 3. This trend in which everyone is offended by something and everyone should bend to our own sensibilities is nonsense; if someone in my private personal life asks me politely that I call him or her in a specific way, I will probably agree (except if it's detrimental to the person's mental or physical health, enabling delusions or disorders), otherwise I say NO!, you don't like it, well grow up, get therapy, and develop some emotional repertoire. I will keep calling JRPGs, JRPGs and there's nothing anyone can do to change that.
This is what... the third interview by Yoshi-P taken out of context in relation to FFXVI? Thank you for being part of the solution and conversation, rather than dismissing Yoshida's feelings or dumping the term altogether without a backup. Too many people online are offended over Yoshida's perceived offense and it's draining
Thanks! No cold today, knock on wood. Was just aiming for a relaxed "Tom" from Toonami vibe this time around. I don't know how well I hit the mark but thought this delivery lent itself well to this topic. :)
I don’t think we need to get rid of the term JRPG, but might I suggest the term “Quest-like” as an alternative? The genre we love traces its origin back to Dragon Quest, after all.
I'm not a smart man. I don't have the intelligence to categorize entire genres of games with vast differences in mechanics, story-telling and focus into nice, tidy buckets that provide a handle that makes logical sense. I just know that when I see a youtube video with Instructor Sara Valestein in the title card, I'm clicking on that video and watching it to completion.
Elden Ring and Pokemon are both JRPGs. They are both RPGs and they are both made in Japan. Pokemon plays like a traditional JRPG while Elden Ring has evolved from a traditional JRPG, but is still a JRPG at its core.
The fact that we’re worried about the term, jRPG, and not other substantially more serious matters going on in the world let me know how in trouble we truly are as a society and a planet
So, because greater things happen, we must stop having any niches and nerdy trends and make 100% of all youtube videos about life-changing important stuff? Truly absurd.
I work in product categorization. Seems to me we need multi level categories. Family > Category. Origin like Japan is a product attribute and not a category. Since games are an interactive medium. I think method of interaction seems the proper family. Tried my hand at a few as a POC to get started... Turn based: >Narrative turn (trails) >Adventure turn (dragon quest) >Strategy turn (fire emblem) >Collectathon turn (Pokemon) Action based: >Adventure action (Zelda) >Narrative action (last of us) >Strategy action (StarCraft) >Sports >Racing >Platformer Visual novel (ace attorney) Puzzle(Tetris) Would like to know what you think of this as a base! I tried to group by the primary means of player interaction.
Dude, this is my _jam!_ This is the kind of discussion I love to see. I think that there would be some tricky ones to classify, like the Tales of games for instance, but it's a heck of a start. It all kind of comes down to what people will accept. I wonder how it is that other media genres became well established? Part of me thinks it had to occur from a top-down, rather than ground-up approach, right? Like through libraries, or retail stores?
Strategy games can also be divided into more sub categories like real-time strategy (RTS) like Starcraft or Age of Empires, or turn-based. Games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon could also fall into an entirely different sub-category altogether, as it's usually called a "dungeon-crawler", but it's also turn-based... and technically also an RPG... The way I see it, categorizing video games feels more like identifying genuses and species in the plant and animal kingdoms. So many sub-categories and genres that blends together that it's very tough to pinpoint what the ACTUAL genre is supposed to be.. Brigandine for example, is a strategy game, where you choose a country, then organize each troops by having you basically collect monsters to then rearrange into a unit with a knight commander, and then move them aroud the castles in your domain to then attack neighboring countries. Once an invasion starts you are then thrown into what basically is a turn-based strategy, akin to Fire Emblem of Final Fantasy Tactics, except the tiles are hexagonal, allowing for more movement options... Lets not forget that each monster you summon has a mana cost, magic cost, and upkeep, and you need to literally master addition and subtraction, as the knight commanders have a set of "magic pool" that can only allow a set number of monsters in their troop (max of 6). Say, a dragon costs 75, and a unicorn costs 45. So that makes 120. A knight should have at least 120 magic pool or more to be able to control these monsters. TL:DR: Brigandine is, in a broader sense, a strategy game, but the sub-categories being monster collection, resource management, turn-based strategy, AND also an RPG, Since you take the "role" of a country (specifically its ruler), and conquer the entire continent to see how the story goes for that nation. Also how the story of the game is presented is done in a visual novel style. Personally, I'd categorize Brigandine as a "Japanese Style Turn-based Strategy Role Playing Game." or JSTSRPG, for short lol
If we were to be more exact a lot of them are more like "Interactive Novels." Going back to the days of Table Top RPGs, you made a lot of choices that affected the trajectory of the story and how events unfold. This honestly translated over to a lot of digital RPGs, even ones that were purely text without any graphics. JRPGs on the other hand unfolded a lot like a novel where instead of deciding the trajectory of the story you were just discovering pre-scripted events much like you would do in a novel. The gameplay portion of JRPGs is also often unrelated to expanding how you can manipulate the world and more like studying so you can pass a test that allows you to uncover more of the story. Going back to the first Dragon Quest, the gameplay loop was simply "grind until you are strong enough to reach the next town." And that's all.
Interactive Novels could be a real contender! I added "anime" to the mix to impart a style, but it's totally optional. EarthBound for instance could totally be an Interactive Novel, for instance.
@@SuperDerek I feel like calling anything a type of "novel" would draw comparisons to Visual Novels which are substantially light on the gameplay aspect
This is a good argument and, logically, I can’t disagree. For some reason it just doesn’t feel right, maybe because there is a certain non-linearity and an amount of exploration that is lost in using “Novel” to describe the story. At the same time, it’s not quite a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, either, because most don’t allow for multiple endings. I don’t really have an alternative that approaches it from this angle; My own thoughts lean towards “PRPG” for “Party-Based RPG”, but even there it’s not cut/dried because of games like Nier Automata …
@@jean-pierrejoubert6140 I consider the Nier games to be a lot closer to something like whatever you would say Zelda games are. Especially Replicant is very Zelda like.
Honestly It will be hard in the west since for years now the term Jrpg stands not only stand for an rpg made in Japan but one that meets a certain level of quality ( and set of troupes).
Fps and all the other terms don't have a cultural or ethnic connotation tied to them. We don't have brpgs or prpgs, Brazil or Poland. It's a big whatever. They've always just been RPGs. It'll happen organically not to worried bout this nontroversy.
Well, the classic distintion is between JRPGs and Western RPGs, the latter are usually more true to the D&D formula, not in combat mechanics, but the more open-ended and loose narrative. What you're talking about could be another sub-division inside JRPGs that are varied in so many ways. Now many games adopted many usual RPG traits, from item levels, stats everywhere, etc.
I've thought a lot about stopping use of the word JRPG for a long time because it isn't inherently descriptive of the type of games I like such as narrative rich game with turn based combat. Yet that's not really a genre naming convention.
Pretty much. The genre naming system is pretty broken. So I'm at the table today not to bend the knee to Yoshi P or whatever, but just because this exact conundrum has been on my nerves for a long time.
@@JIreland1992 Do you make your own story or follow already existing one? In real RPG you are writer of your destiny, well depend how much DM allowes. Only few video games is close to be RPG.
@@JIreland1992 Neutral approach. You right about RPG being driven by story. Yet again, "RPG" is about making story. Other games are about following it. So Mass Effect isn't a RPG But Stellaris is.
I hear what you're saying, but I personally don't like the turn "narrative role playing games" it doesn't sound like something I'd ever play because when I here that, I don't think traditional jRPG, I think of game like the last of us and Spider-man. I get that it makes no sense to use the turn Japanese role playing game when Japanese has *nothing* to do with the game. But language is used to convey what one person thinks to another. If people know what you mean when you say jRPG, then the term is for filling a useful purpose.
Agreed. Genre names are all intended to help be short-handed and effective communication of a huge set of ideas. I've heard "interactive novels" in these comments, I thing that one could have some legs. Maybe.
I can see a few options, but I definitely think “JRPG” never actually quite worked, anyway. (See: the Soulsborne debate) I really like AIN a lot! I could also see replacing RPG altogether being more doable than we think. It’s always been a nebulous and debated term, so what even really are we doing? Why not just say something simple and intuitive like “Fantasy Adventure” and just include games like Zelda and God of War, already. When it comes to sub genres, save the “Role Play” label exclusively for games where you create a custom character and make choices that have real effects, and maybe refer to some as “Anime Fantasy Adventure,” we can always be a bit more descriptive, as we already do, as well, with things like “Turn-based, Action, Real-Time Command, Tactics”… Idk, just spit balling here.
I remember when I was a kid I'd played Final Fantasy 2/4, Earthbound & a number of other titles before playing Mario RPG, but hadn't heard the term Role Playing Game before so I came up with my own conclusion. I thought it stood for Real People Graphics because Mario RPG used 3D renders to make up its sprites. I don't remember when exactly I learned the correct term but I'm sure it wasn't long after that. With so many games including RPG Stat elements now it almost feels like gaming genres as a whole are blurring & fading away, not that I've got a good idea for quickly describing how a game plays with a generic term.
Yoshi P literally dropped the mic with that statement, and it's good to see many engage with what he said. You can even go back to reviews, previews and articles from the erm...'dark days of Japanese gaming' (approx 2005-2011)? and check out the cringey articles from western journalists which confirm what Yoshi P stated in his interview
I'd be fine with AIN. I mean, the games I love most are ones with great, epic stories, often emphasizing the core story over the player's ability to create or select a story of their own, unlike Western RPGs where they try to make your actions far more impactful. And yeah, I play them to a large extent for those core stories, so they are kind of life living in a novel. Honestly, the two are entirely separate genres of game that just happen to have some similar mechanics, mechanics that are becoming more common in an increasingly broad range of genres in any case. Makes sense to try and put more emphasis on the unique characteristics that make this stand out, and since these are like moving around inside a light novel, AIN seems fitting. That said, the whole "not Japanese" thing will remain since we do still have "Not an anime" arguments. And that's fine, there is merit there. I can still see differences between stories written in anime/manga/light novel style that came from Japanese or Western creators. Even when stories from either side put focus on the same principles, there's clear differences, I imagine largely due to the authors growing up in places that put different emphasis on these things. Japan was built on different philosophies and beliefs, and this can be seen even when a story encourages the same idea. "Value how a person stands out" comes across differently depending on whether you grew up in a self-oriented nation that emphasizes "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" or a group-oriented society that emphasizes "the nail that stands out needs to be hammered down".
To further add to my comment. Multiple things can be true at once: the gaming press is biased against Japanese games and the term JRPG doesn’t need to be thrown away.
JRPG is a category of the RPG genre. Same as WRPG, CRPG, and SRPG. There’s nothing derogatory about it, it was clearly a case of misunderstanding/lost in translation.
@SuperDerek RPGs Constructively, I found it to be fairly distracting. On the topic of the video, I feel like people look for excuses to be upset and JRPG has never felt insulting.
I like the terms prpg and irpg, party roll playing game and individualist roll playing game. That way games like mass efect and dragon age fit with persona 5 and ff7 but games like elden ring ff16 and witcher 3 fit together too.
That's a really well thought-out and constructive video Derek. Story-telling is definitely what I would *want* to focus on in a new term, but that also applies to a lot of Western-style RPGs too, so I feel there's not enough distinction there. I don't know if it adds an extra wrinkle to the conversation, but I was recently interviewed by a Japanese website about my game, and right in the title of the article they described it as a "JRPG". That made me really curious about whether this term is also being used widely by Japanese-speaking fans in RPG circles too - especially since platforms like Steam have a whole category for JRPGs.
I've tried to stick with "Console style RPG" for the last few years when describing something with a clear Dragon Quest herritage, opposed to "Computer style" or "PC style" for the more open ended, western style with a Ultima/Wizzardry herritage. Far from a perfect system but I think it kinda sorta works.
@@sirsquid577 i mean yeah, basically all of Falcoms early products and a lot of others are kind of exceptions to this rule. I think both Dragon Slayer and The Black Onyx were released sometime in 84. Maybe even Hydlide too. Although I would argue they are so early and experimental that they are closer to Ultima and/or Wizzardry than the standard that DQ popularised. So in that regard you could say that the "Computer style" branding would still be accurate.
You hit on a lot of points, and a lot of thoughts I've had on this whole situation myself. As a side note, the voiceover on this was so smooth, I feel like I need to listen to it in a room with low lighting while sipping a fine wine
I 'member. I remember FFX getting torn a new one too because it was a JRPG. I remember them calling Tidus "tight ass" and making all kinds of homophobic jokes too. Game journalists were pretty ruthlessly biased against JRPGs for a long time. Which inspired my channel, in fact.
Way I see it, there are two general styles of (videogame) RPG: One focused on the stats, mechanics and dice rolls, and the vast majority of these games are what we call CRPGs or Western RPGs. The second style is less focused on the rules and more in the narrative and character development, and these are what we call JRPGs. Since CRPGs are RPGs that are closer to Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Troll and Traveller, these games should be called RPGs. Since JRPGs are based on CRPGs but streamlined, light on rules, they should be called Lite RPGs. A change in name is necessary because there are many people who hold the idea that JRPGs are only made in Japan/by Japanese people. For them, Cosmic Star Heroine, Ara Fell or Rise of the Third Power are not JRPGs because they were made by Americans. At the same time, they don't think Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma are JRPGs, even when they are RPGs made in Japan, by Japanese people. There are some possible names: CRPG ------------- JRPG RPG --------------- Lite RPG Crunch RPG --- Fluff RPG RPG --------------- Narrative RPG
JRPG to me is the true essence of what a role playing game is supposed to be, a collection of gameplay elements that’s synonymous with the genre: Affinities, weaknesses, equipment, stats, min / maxing, turned-based action, strategic combat and team composition, the list goes on. No one does it better than Japanese developers with their distinct style, and unique point of view that stems from their culture. This is the reason why I don’t enjoy western RPGs, it doesn’t have the elements I enjoy or the artistic aesthetic. Japanese developers ooze creativity, and it shows in their diverse library of games.
I think alternative terms just complicate things because with JRPG we all have probably something similar in mind. If we create new terms where western RPGs could also fit in, we would probably add that we mean games from japan and with that it just goes full circle back to the term JRPG. The Final Fantasy producer should just accept that we in the west use other terms. I mean if we talk about anime we mean animation from japan. But in japan the term anime includes everything animated including western cartoons like Spongebob or the Simpsons, we don't do that. The same thing for manga, where comics like Hulk or Spiderman are called manga in Japan. And just a reminder for the producer, in japan they use the term J-POP and K-POP for japanese and korean music, shouldn't they change the terms to pop only if this is discriminatory? They wouldn't do it because they just make sense.
why should we? Yoshi P seems to be the only person who vocally hates the term which...is odd seeing as Square and Enix popularized the term in the first place
It's not. People are just taking Yoshida out of context. Most of this video is focused on other aspects of the genre, it's history, and why we might want to move onto something more functional anyway.
I saw video of western developer say 'jrpg' sucks to a freelance japanese game dev, in a conference, and the whole room laugh. Also when head of IGN (cmiiw) in the past mock turn-based RPG. So I kinda understand why Yoshi P feel like that. Need to understand that Japanese have a lot of pride for their work.
I've loved the genre since the SNES was a current-gen console, and it'll be my favorite until I die, most likely. I think this is an interesting topic, and it's brought up a lot of old videos and feelings in the community. I figured I'd share my take. I never used the term "JRPG" growing up. I didn't personally hear or read anyone using the word until Western RPGs started becoming more popular on consoles. A friend used the term "WRPG" around me when discussing games like Morrowind and KOTOR. After this, I started hearing more people use "JRPG" to discuss the games we all know and love. I'm not saying this is where the term started, but it's when I first started hearing people use the phrases "WRPG" and "JRPG." I've never had anyone in real life use the JRPG acronym as an insult. Online, I've seen people who dislike the genre speak poorly of it. Most of the negativity surrounding the genre that I can remember came from game journalists in the late PS2 era and then during the PS3/360 era. You might have seen some of the old Xplay reviews that have resurfaced where the hosts try to bury JRPGs and say some racist BS. The PS3/360 generation was tough for the genre. There were some gems that came out, but a lot of series died. Thankfully, things turned around, and there was a resurgance. Japanese games became much more popular again during the PS4 era. I don't personally think that JRPG is a derogatory term. I just think that there have been game journalists and crappy people who have used the word in negative ways in the past. Replacing the term would be fine. I think you'd get a lot of pushback for "NRPG" though. I think that unless Japanese devs come out and say that they would like the term JRPG to cease being used, it should remain as a genre descriptor. Or we could just be very specific and say "turn-based RPG," "character action RPG," and "strategy RPG" instead of lumping everything together. Sorry for the long-windedness, but I figured I'd throw my opinion out there.
With how easy it is to offend someone in this world today, I try not to think about it too much. It’s impossible to make everyone happy and that is a fact. That being said “Party Focused RPGs” may fit the bill.
Let's be real, most gamers grew up with these terms and are unlikely to give it up. It's like how Nintendo doesn't want people to use "metroidvania" and instead insists on using their term "search action". It hasn't stuck and probably never will.
TL;DW: Until we have something better to move toward, saying "don't say JRPG" isn't good enough. Let's start trying to find a better way to describe the games we love. And when we do find a better option, we can finally stop having the "RPGs not from Japan can't be JRPGs" arguments. That'll be the day.
You’ve lost your mind. RPGs from Japan, always are and always will be JRPGs. There will never be anything wrong with that.
I think as you alluded to in the video “Jrpg” is kind of a redundant term. Maybe something more descriptive of the actual games like “stat based adventure games” would be better (obviously something a bit snappier though)
Edited my above comment for clarity.
@@TheSupaman98 False. JRPG denotes a style. Just like country music. If you're from new York but you sing like Johny Cash, you're a country singer from an urban mega city. If you're from the countryside, but you play thrash metal, you're not country, you're metal.
Why call it names anyway? "Do you know Terranigma?" - "No, what is it?" -> wrong answer: "it's a jrpg", right: "It's f***ing awesome, go play it!"
JRPGs are the best RPGs.
Pretty much why I've spent the last decade playing, reviewing, and talking about them almost exclusively. :)
The problem is it has some people who only listen to their hater(non paying) and not their fans(paying).
is it hard to just call them RPGs...
@@kennethguinto4862 well RPG is just way too broad a term. We need to subdivide it in someway to keep classifications meaningful. The idea of a genre is to in a sort title describe the sort of things you can expect out of a game you are looking to get. If you put every game with elements of an rpg into the same genre the term would be functionally useless. Thus we need to subdivide the genres. I would actually argue that games with turn based (or atb, or conditional turn based) belong in a different genre category than rpgs with action based combat. And of course I do disagree with the original posters claim that jrpgs are the best rpgs (despite loving the genre) I tend to find CRPG's to have plots that are much more profound (I don't think I've ever played another game as profound and philosophical as planescape torment) and of course I love tactical turned based combat I consider it to be the superior form of rpg combat imo.
@@Yurothehotot nah we dont give a shit on western rpgs what sub genre they are . We can do the same on RPGs form japan. End of story ... It is seriously NOT that hard.
if someone tells me This is a western RPG NO one gives a shit if its whaterever.. But the moment something came from japan
If plus one the following >>> OHHHHHH JRRRRRRPPPPPPPGGGGG
No sir... sit down.
I think JRPG is a very fine term and doesn't need to be replaced, just like Metroidvania or Shmup.
I love japanese culture in their games. I hope it never goes away to global standards.
Global "American" Standards
Let's let Japan do its thing. Their winning for a reason
@@tatsumitwi348 Japanese devs are the ones who are not a fan of the JRPG term.
@@TheEregos It’s like rappers who wanna be called artists…yeah bro I love u but u a rapper
I have always used the term jrpg and it was always a positive term to me.
And I'm an old fart who's been in this genre for a really long time.
Never before have I been aware that there was any negative judgement in it.
I won't stop using it because it was never an insult; it was a description of a very specific flavour of game design.
yup!!
I'm an old fart too, and I remember there actually being a time when Jrpg was bandied about in a negative light. If it wasn't for the AAA game industry shooting themselves in the foot with the types of big soulless open world games they make, JRPG would still be used as a pejorative.
No matter what twitter says, I'll be calling them JRPGs. What's next, J-Pop music is racist too?
I asked a friend whose wife is a Japanese gamer. She said growing up they were just RPGs, didn't hear of J rpg until she came to the states. But it was not negative to her just descriptive. So im gonna keep using it because it seems to offend no one. Yoshi p seems to have hada personal beef with some elitest devs back in the day. But when your average gamer hears jrpg we think of the best games ever made, in the golden snes era and now
No need to. Like when people say turnbased is outdated bur then gets proven wrong over and over again.
Yep, I still use the term turn based RPG myself!
No. Nothing wrong with the term jrpg.
Yah noones gonna be upset, you're just more based if you say RPG.
@@SerfsUp1848 Being less specific is not "based".
"What genre is the band slipknot?"
Pretentious smug internet man: Music
@@mickeymickey9914 slipknot is nu metal. that was really easy.
@@mickeymickey9914 no it's white trash metal. There now it's on the level of jrpg. So tell me is Japanese metal JMetal?
@@SerfsUp1848 You realize that it is, right? We already have these designations. jpop, kpop, jrock, krock, etc? You calling something white trash is not the same because you are equating an actual slur to the word "Japanese". And thats pretty fucked up, yo.
You can generally tell where a game was designed by the look and feel of it. Although a few RPG's made in other regions have and do try to successfully mimic the style of Japanese made RPG's. As someone was there in the 80's and 90's we used the term JRPG to signify that it was a game that was worth playing and properly designed and made. I always saw it as more of a badge of honor or signifying that it was a higher quality game than non JRPG's. I have never heard of it being used as derogatory.
Same here. Western RPGs was a bucket term for most of the RPGs I didn't want to play. :-P
@@SuperDerek Same. I didnt particulary hate WRPGs, but the stigma I had of them were that they were all traditional and generic european fantasy set in the middle ages with little focus on telling a grand story.
Until Elder Scrolls Morrowind, and eventually, Mass Effect, I very much saw JRPGs as a distinction of quality immersion and progressive fantasy story-telling, despite the manga-inspired tropes. It wasnt until these games, that I began to reconsider WRPGs as being worth my time.
It has more to do in the 2000s and early 2010s. Especially coming off the heels of ff13 for yoshi p, I remember so many game outlets outright being hostile. While that game has many flaws and I myself don't like the game, the response was so toxic and unnecessary.
I’m sad and confused about that interview. Not only JRPGs had a good connotation since the 90s everywhere I go, I find it weird they don’t want to “own” the term.
It’s like being mad at Samba and Bossa Nova being called “Brazilian Music”. It’s far from all of what Brazilian musicians do, and it could be reductive in some contexts, but hell yeah, that’s Brazilian music, and it had a huge influence all over the world.
I don’t want to dismiss any bad experiences Japanese developers had, but the feeling I got was more that Yoshi P wanted to break Final Fantasy from the JPRG box. They even name dropped GTA in that interview. I think he wants to show that Japanese devs can do more great stuff that’s not traditionally associated with Japan. IMO FromSoft already did that, but they seem to want mass appeal, not niche excellence.
That’s fair, even if it makes me sad. But I still have a sliver of hope this will be an amazing game despite comparisons to God of War, which I don’t like.
Im into jrpgs and proud of it.
Jolly role-playing games
The fact that it used to be considered negative but is not currently viewed with the same malice and has a much more positive edge is more than likely whats going to continue to keep that acronym around for a long time. I do not currently have a better suggestion to apply a layer on this to help but I like your suggestions. Thank you for discussing this as it is an important conversation to have. I did not know it was considered to be a negative term and I think that may have surprised a lot of people that it was.
Are people really saying JRPG is a bad term now? I think some are fundamentally misunderstanding what Yoshi P was saying really. The term was applied to the genre early but was never used in Japan as they're, of course, just RPGs to a Japanese audience. However, it gradually was treated with disdain by some Western audiences after the Playstation 1 boom period for the genre. In the mid 2000s, it was treated as a dirty term, a marker of outdated game design, infirior to Western titles which moved towards 'true open world' and more grounded real time combat. Classic games like Lost Odyssey generally recieved pretty mixed reviews despite being so great just because their style was seen as being dated. Turn-based being the biggest thing here, often seen as dated and existing just due to technological limitations rather than the reality of it merely being a style of gameplay. There is of course a xenophobic tint towards all of this too where those same criticisms are not attached to Western games that do the same thing (FPS games have hardly evolved all that much). However, the term now has more positive connotations, JRPGs are generally enjoying a second boom period, and we, fans of the genre, have been enjoying a renaissance of sorts the past few years, and even really tradional anime style JRPGs like Persona 5 (with turn based combat) and throwback titles like Octopath have entered the mainstream. It's an important debate to be had, and it should invite us to look back at the games that were dismissed all those years ago by Western game reviewers with a new critical lens, but the term itself was not the issue and Yoshi-P was talking about a point in time and not today. Even some games now proudly display the term in their marketing, with JRPG inspired games like Chained Echoes, and the recent re-release of Tales of Symphonia proudly displays 'JRPG classic' on its box.
Anything can be used with disdain by the people who don't like it. And every genre has its haters. The Japanese don't speak very fondly of FPS.
Side note, from what I’ve seen, FF16 is hack and slash
I don't think that Yoshi-P was trying to say that "JRPG" as a term should be dropped.
He just doesn't want Final Fantasy series to be put under JRPG umbrella. That's because from his interactions with fans and media, JRPG is defined as (and I quote): "..speaking with fans and media about their image of the franchise, they would always give the same answer: that it's turn based, that it's anime like, these teenagers saving the world, 'very JRPG' ".
It's pretty clear that he and his team want to make Final Fantasy games that evolve over time and are not shackled in chains by predefined characteristics.
Yeah, no. Taking Yoshi-P too seriously will get you into trouble - and many of the rules he enforces in games like FFXIV is because they have laws in Japan that people can sue companies if players in their game causes injury to that person's honor. That's why he's very sensitive to language and he's careful about the terms. However, much like I won't stop using the okay hand signal while diving because 4chan trolled people into thinking it's racist, I'm not going to stop calling this genre by it's name, JRPGs - Japanese Role Playing Games - because some a-holes decided to use it to denigrate people or some other a-holes decided to be offended on others behalf. It's a genre and word that has given me a lot of joy in my life, and I'm not changing it for anyone
Best way of explaining how I and many others feel. I also believe we need to stop giving in to people who are constantly offended by everything.
Amen to that!
@@ChronicSensei Especially the people that get offended on other people's behalf. Moral grandstanding is a plague in today's online discourse. If some people want to stop using the term that's fine but for me it's no different than saying ARPG or CRPG etc. I associate the term with a type of RPG I enjoy.
It was NEVER denegrated more than any other genre. The dudebros who trashed JRPGs, i clapped back by trashing cawadoodie and Madden. Yet FPS isn't an insult now.
Hard boiled video for a hard boiled topic.
I think JRPG is fine. It's the genre I love. Similar naming conventions are used for music like J and K pop.
Are K-pop and J-pop actually genres, or regional designations of... pop? Is pop music a genre, is it a collection of genres? A pop album - whether Korean or British - is likely to contain a danceable upbeat song and a ballad, are these two the same genre? There is still controversy and backlash when a British group or performer tries to market themselves as k-pop. But then when one makes "kawai pop" or "bubblegum pop" this doesn't seem to be too controversial. These naming conventions have issues.
nope, it'll always be JRPG 🙏🖤🌌
This is such a ridiculous thing.
It's a genre, and essentially a term of endearment for anyone who grew up with the 8/16/32 bit systems.
It is NOT an insult, and just because a few people misunderstood it doesn't mean the rest of the world should name a GENRE of all things.
Having a problem with the term JRPG makes zero sense. People are just creating a false controversy. It just means "RPGs in the style of the classic Japanese RPGs". That describes the genre perfeclty.
What is classic jRPG?
No. The term is fine, and I'm sticking to it forever.
personally i think this is stupid. jrpg, arpg, crpg are just terms to diferentiate subgeneres, theres nothing wrong with it and im gonna continue using it.
I think erasing the JRPG genre label would be pointless. Should we also start calling manga as comics? Should we also start calling anime as cartoons? (Side note: Japan calls American comics as "American comics". Because it is necessary and helpful to distinguish things influenced by a vastly different culture as being so. Because people who enjoy one aren't necessarily going to enjoy the other.)
Deleting an already broad term such as JRPG to only use an even more broad term like RPG doesn't help anyone. And if you instead change the name to something else that means the same thing, that's also pointless. As you said, it's not gonna stop people who hate and denigrate the games from doing so, and it's just giving another name to the exact same thing.
Also, just to be clear (I know my post was a little dry), I do fully support you and understand you were just trying to offer suggestions since this is the conversation we're dealing with atm. I know certainly there will be people pushing back against you for just covering it at all, but that's not me.
I still wonder where YoshiP first heard the term JRPG in a negative "stuck" context that he has such a negative opinion on it, because for me, it represented what it directly means: A roleplaying game from japan with it's style in visuals, certain more cultural reflective tendencies and even thoughtful designed stories.
Most likely from some media outlet, maybe during an interview or something. I think the language barrier would have kept most player interactions limited during the timeline he was talking about years ago
I copy the exact same comment I posted on David's page:
A more gameplay attuned term would be "Role Playing Novel". Actually, the meaning of RPG is in the name, just not the way you think it. You can't "Play the role" of an existing character. To roleplay is to pretend you're a fictional character, like your self-insert character in an tabletop game like D&D, or "true" RPGs like Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment.
Now, from Japan (mostly) come the Role Playing Novels, or "DraQue"s (they literally named them after Dragon Quest, just like FPS were called "Doom Clones" way back when). Characters still have roles, they need their stats - Thieves need speed and agility, Mages need high magic prowess, Knights need physical prowess - but they are all predetermined characters in a long, sprawling novel narrative. Whether it's the turn-based RPN Final Fantasy, action combat RPN Tales of, or even the strategy RPN Fire Emblem, they all use RPG elements in a genre that is mostly an interactive novel adventure. The big problem is that Visual Novels are a genre much more recent than RPGs, that have their roots in the early to mid 80's.
It's never too late to reinvent the wheel, though. Hell, JRPG isn't even the first term. Back in the 90's, people said "Computer RPGs" (a term still referred to as "CRPG" for the most classic RPGs where you come to roleplay and roleplay alone - and "Console RPGs". Septerra Core and Anachronox were advertised as a "Console RPG on a PC", while Shadowrun gave a very Computer RPG experience on the SNES and Mega Drive. When Microsoft entered the fray and games like KotOR and Fable were released on the Xbox, the terms changed.
So yeah, Baldur's Gate is an RPG (or a CRPG), games like Deus Ex are Action RPGs because the roleplay is set through action, pure action games like Diablo and Dark Souls I like to call Build RPGs, Final Fantasy clones are RPNs, Monster Hunter and Yakuza are action games with heavy RPG elements, and Zelda is Action freaking Adventure.
The video is like smooth jazz. Sultry, flowing commentary. “Snap snap snap”
Action RPG's, Turn Based RPG's, Narrative RPG's, Tactic RPG's, Western RPG's, Computer RPG's... They really aren't that different, and any of the bad feelings that come from being labelled as a JRPG come from people crapping all over them just because they don't like things like anime or turn based combat and the traditional aesthetics that come from those games. It really does feel like the developers of FFXVI are looking for acceptance from the wrong crowd and it's a shame, because there are a massive amount of people who have always loved and adored Roleplaying games from Japan...
JRPG isn't a demeaning term or a slur. Im 36 years old and JRPG came about as a way to differentiate between RPGs like Elder Scrolls and Final Fantasy. Im not certain why some Japanese devs took the term as gate-keeping or to look down on Japanese games, but I can assure you... Many of us simply used the term to denote the common tropes of RPGs we grew up fondly with from the Orient. Things like Turn Based Combat and a story about a group of young people who meet up to save the world or kill god.
Im not fond of changing how everyone speaks because a few people are offended with what seems like over very little reason. In that interview, he said he just set out to make an "RPG" and found it offensive that people called them "JRPG" to separate them from other games. But this is ignoring that we do this with other games to. WRPG, SRPG, and CRPG are all in common use to differentiate types of RPGs because the genre is so huge.
It sounds like he's being overly sensitive to me and not understanding the purpose behind said labels. For that reason, im not in favor dropping the j off of jRPG. Its too important at distinguishing a type of RPG that I grew up with and adore. Does he not know that the term WRPG or SRPG exists? JRPG doesnt mean your game is lesser. Its simply a way to further describe a style of game that originated in Japan. Notably, a turn-based game with lots of manga-inspired tropes such as young children banding together to save the world through friendship...
Im 100% certain people who hate JRPGs use the term derisively, and stigmatize it, but thats ignoring the very large amount of people who grew up on and loved these games. JRPG is just a sub-genre of RPG. Would he be happier if they were all called "Dragon Quest -likes"?
of course it's not. Well, not for fans of JRPGs anyway. I'm interested in the discussion though because I think the current genre system has never made much sense and I'm interested in finding better options. :)
@@SuperDerek I think "better" is subjective. For me, I know and understand exactly what JRPG means because im old and was there when these terms were coined. When someone says JRPG to me, I know they arent telling me that a game is shit or that it was made in Japan. They are telling me that a game adheres to or plays like those RPGs I grew up playing on the SNES.
That said, I can also understand why wRPG and jRPG is confusing to younger people who dont have that frame of reference. Thus the terms jRPG and wRPG hold little information to them as a descriptor. If these terms just came out today, JRPG could easily be used to denote games like Elden Ring. So for that reason, I can admit that these terms are dated and not exactly helpful as subgenre discriptors for anyone who isnt in their mid 30s yet.
That said, I refuse to submit that the term JRPG is derogatory. It was never meant to be so. It was only used that way by those who hated JRPGs and turn-based combat. This was practically every journalist/game reviewer in the 2000s who didnt grow up playing Squaresoft titles. And its why a lot of us didnt really take stock in game reviews in magazines in the late 90s to mid 2000s. Because those people didnt like strategy combat and hated manga-tropes. Screw those guys.
JRPG is just a category.
Yep. And it was one that was hotly contested already _before_ Yoshi P weighed in on it. I'm just hoping we can get something better out of this discussion.
He's wrong. Being a developer doesn't instantly make him right. JRPG just denotes a style of RPG, based on dragon quest, and RPG denotes a style, based on D&D. And that's all she wrote.
Yoshi P in that interview didn't just say "it's offensive don't use the word". He was talking about how there's some sore feelings tied to it because of how it was used a while back, and that now the term gets used in a more positive light. Tried to cover that in this video, but it sucks his discussion has been sensationalized so much.
@@SuperDerek I think he's wrong about that though. I think he just saw some video from some haters like G4. But they always upset their audience when they did that. I can find a million videos of people bashing rap music, country music, or metal. None of those labels are insults though. Haters bash on other fanbases, they always have and will but they're not important and their opinions don't matter.
That's a fact. I'm mainly interested in this discussion of the genre name because of other reasons. The fact that nobody agrees on what is or isn't a JRPG, whether Action RPGs can be JRPGs, whether Western-made RPGs can be JRPGs, so many people want to gate-keep the term. I have purely selfish reasons for wanting to revamp the genre name system. :)
Regarding the "JRPG term controversy", I found an interesting take on Maximillian Dood's reaction video that I wanted to share with you:
"About the JRPG thing, I have a bit of a unique perspective I'd like to share. I lived 8 years in Japan. Went over there to try and break into the industry... actually did it for a couple of years and worked at a very well-known company for a couple of years (not Square Enix).
Anyway, I think the term JRPG was taken as offensive for Japanese developers for a number of reasons. It's not as simple as the negative connotations that sprung up at around the same time as FFXIII, though that's obviously a big part of it.
What happens is that, for the longest time (and even today), they've used the term "youge" as a derogative for western games. They didn't even consider them "games" proper (see, "videogames", according to them, were "a Japanese thing" -- and I'm quoting Hideo Kojima here.) I was actually shocked at how disdainful the term "youge" actually was when I went there. Well, right at the time FFXIII came out, the Japanese game industry was declining rapidly in terms of market share. They needed to sell games in the west to survive, but they weren't doing it well. Today, the Japanese game industry is a cell-phone gacha fest, a shadow of its former self.
Western developers were putting out console games, good ones, and selling gang-busters. And now Japanese developers were like "how are we supposed to compete with this? It's not fair! We don't have the budget, we don't have the sales!" And it's against this backdrop that the term JRPG began to be used. Regardless of the negative connotations it had over here, over there it was much worse, because 1) they were losing literally 90% of the market, 2) they'd always thought of themselves as making RPGs and 3) they had the term "youge" as an analog. So they automatically assumed that JRPG was as bad as "youge", and, especially as you're losing almost all of your market, that's gotta sting.
What I think is that the term was being used negatively by some people at the start, but not all of them, and certainly it's become purely descriptive nowadays. But in Japan they resented the rebranding of the genre, and assumed it was like when they rebranded western games as "youge". The Japanese game industry narrative is this: "RPGs" were not intuitive and could not be enjoyed by a mainstream audience until the Great Yuji Horii came and made Dragon Quest; and they were a hit in Japan but not in the West, because the games were, in FF creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's words, too "complex" for Western audiences (nevermind that the genre originated in the West - but prejudice is never rational). However, thanks to the cutting-edge graphics pioneered by Final Fantasy, they started selling in the West, too. "Final Fantasy" is the big Japanese RPG franchise that sells in the West, too.
Anyway, Yoshi P in particular has to have taken the JRPG classification personally, as he was one of the few Japanese gamers who actually did appreciate Western games. He played the original Ultima Online! He played Everquest! So for him to hear that term, and having "youge" as a point of reference, it must have really been awful.
Its...complicated... Japanese society as a whole has both disdain and admiration -both superiority and inferiority complexes- with regards to the West. I would have trouble understanding it if I did not have very specific point of reference myself.
Well, here's hoping someone takes the trouble to read this post, and that it helps shed some light on the issue."
Super interesting! Thank you for this data point! :)
@@SuperDerek Thank you for making this video!
What kind of filters or shaders are you using on those older games showing in 4:3, they look great
These were an effect I manually created in my editing software during earlier episodes of The Game Collection. Unfortunately I don't think there's a single filter you could apply with an emulator that could accomplish that CRT look I did with visual effects. Glad you enjoyed the look though! :)
JRPG was never a dirty word in the US dating way further back than the source of this discussion began. The only time it ever got a semi-negative connotation was near the end of the PS3 era when dozens upon dozens of "JRPGs" dropped that were all anime trash. Really some of the worst games of the genre are the ones with flat panel characters popping up for dialogue. Stories that hit every single cliché but just happen to have passible mechanics.
Japanese devs needs to do two things: 1) get over it. The term is one of endearment, love, and respect. 2) stop using truly terrible plots that are just a rehashed as most modern animes. Get back to the solid story telling and semi-character driven narratives of the 90's.
I don't really think we need a new term. Just update the current one to "Japanese styled RPGs".
💯
I can actually agree with this. Just leave the S silent but implied when saying JRPG, since no one will actually want to say out JSRPG, but everyone will still know what we are talking about.
That's how I've been using the term JRPG for the longest time now. In "JSRPG" the "s" is silent. :-P
Since the Japanese have their own term for cartoon and comic book, do they not have one for RPG that could be used? From what I can find via google they just use slightly japanified english terms for both video game and RPG.
Although I can see a couple of "issues" or nuances in that or with a term like JRPG - One is I don't think they necessarily have to be made there to be a JRPG as it's a style that can be mimicked, as well as mixed to some extent with other styles (it already is a blend of east and west from the beginning) and one that has evolved over time as you alluded to at one point in the vid.
The other is that it sort of summarizes an entire country which naturally has various sub cultures like any other country and which is reflected in different styles, under the umbrella term JRPG. But other genres have the same problem and you might have to specify with more or other words to find what you're looking for, such as FF-style or Mother-style.
Why is the term JRPG now a topic for debate like really Idk what started this it's just been on my feed.
We have JPOP(Japanese POP) , KPOP(Korean POP) JROCK(Japanese Rock) it is a way for someone to express what they like without using something that is too broad.
It's like if you just say you like pop or rock when talking to people they may talk about pop and rock that is more local to your part of the world or more main stream and you may not care about it at all.
Same thing with RPGs like if you just say you like RPGs that is a very broad range where as if you said you like JRPGs it narrows it down more to what you are into.
Lets take Derek's suggestion of Narrative-Driven RPGs that is still very broad term because TRPGs/SRPGs, Western RPGs JRPGs still fit into it.
Like at the end of day these mini sub groupings like JRPGs, JPOP, KPOP, JROCK, TRPGs/SRPGs, Western RPGs are just terms that have been coined by people over the years to just make it easier to express what one is into.
This all goes back to what I said at the start why is a topic for debate now.
Yep! Pretty much all of our options suck. So when people start demanding we use a different word to describe the games we love, have them throw their own hat in the ring with some better alternatives. I'd love to hear a real solution to this problem.
This discussion should die. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the term. This has only become "hotly debated" this week. Nobody used the term to look down on these games. People simply looked down on the games, the term notwithstanding. At a time where jrpgs are more popular worldwide than ever before, attacking the term is meaningless and downright toxic. It does nothing to lift up the genre.
Fans of JRPGs definitely have always used it as a term of endearment. One need only watch the latest viral Sessler Xplay clip of Baten Kaitos Origins gone viral to see how the word was used by the media back in the day. It's no wonder Yoshi P would have been bugged by the term. I still use the word and love it, but think this discussion could be a good chance to come up with some interesting alternatives that _could_ be better.
@@SuperDerek So, funny thing about that viral clip. They did absolutely drag that game through the mud and made a ton of blatantly racist comments. But NONE of the negativity was in association with the term JRPG, which was only briefly mentioned once. Everything was directed at the game and their culture and the term was entirely not a factor. People have been confusing the idea of "negativity torward X thing" somehow meaning "the term for X must be bad now". This is simply not how our language works. We need to call out bigotry and racism, but we must make sure to put our focus in the right places. Changing the term does not solve anything. These people would have been racist with or without the J.
What is an rpg…
It is a rocket propelled grenade. That kind of rpg you dont want to play with
I agree with everything in this video. Whatever term gets picked we don't need to let journalism pick it for us. The narrative focus sounds really great.
If anything, game journalists of the time were the ones who used "JRPG" as a derogatory word 15 years ago that got us into whatever this current pickle is.
It's a shame trying to just use the Japanese term for the genre like we collectively did with "anime" vs "Japanimation" probably wouldn't work, because RPG in Japanese is just... "aru pi ji", and I don't think purposefully using "Engrish" will be less insulting. The issue persists with my other idea, which was to name it in honor of the grand daddy of the subgenre in Japan, Dragon Quest, but that would ALSO be "Engrish" (Kuesto-RPG)
Agreed. Would be nice if we had an established term, closest I could think of was Nihon RPG, but kinda doubt it'd stick
It's a matter of sensibilities. I think JRPG is fine for describing an RPG with distinctive Japanese sensibilities. NRPG also makes sense to describe Nihon sensibilities, if respect is the issue. But it's more than the games being focused on narrative, it's an all-encompassing, unique style that originates from Japan. I and many JRPG fans think it's a beautiful style, and some Western RPG fans just don't like it and never will. Changing what it's called will make no difference, those people will still refer to it with disdain. They'll still use whatever new word we choose to describe what they dislike about it. They'll never be happy with any RPG that doesn't appeal to their Western sensibilities.
If Yoshi P wants to make a Western RPG, fine. He should just do a sword and shield RPG. From Soft did it, nobody looks at their games and categorizes them as JRPGs. What he wants is people to stop distinguishing between irrefutably different sensibilities, and that's not going to happen. He's making a game that is clearly aiming to meet Western sensibilities but it still has noticeable Japanese sensibilities and he feels insecure about that, so now he's trying to apply a moral standard to make people feel guilty for expressly disliking games with Japanese sensibilities, whether he realizes that's what he's doing or not. He should just accept that criticism is a reality that creators have to parse with. Some of it will help him improve as a creator and some of it will just stifle his creative spirit with expectations his own tastes don't align with.
If people told him why they dislike JRPGs and he listened and aimed to improve, I believe his work should speak for itself, and if it's good enough it will raise the bar for how Western RPG fans perceive JRPGs as a style subgenre. There's no need to try and speed up that process by redefining the subgenre that defines the specific sensibilities on display in an attempt to trick people into accepting them. He wants people to see 16 as just an RPG, but people use subgenres. WRPG, JRPG, ARPG, TRPG, we all know what these are and what they mean and they're each as much RPGs as the other. 16 IS "just an RPG", but it clearly is also a mix of ideals between W and J, there's no hiding that from people who are going to dislike it for one or the other.
He did listen to why people dislike JRPGs. Now he shat out FF15 and FF16.
@Travis Yoshi P was involved in revamping FF14 after someone else screwed the pooch at launch, and is working on the upcoming FF16, but he wasn't involved in 15. And the people who play 14 love him for it.
I mean, I'm wondering how much of this could be a push by Square Enix as a sort of corporate push towards "Global" (i.e. American) Standards and trying to pull even further from Japan.
Considering that 15 years ago comment, (about 2008 or so) and knowing what we do about American Gaming companies and industry personalities I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese had JRPG thrown at them by the western industry in a derogatory sense and they simply mistakenly got the idea that JRPG fans in the west were the same. The people I'm the American side of this industry definitely seem to have a bad habit of displaying a level of disdain towards Japanese and Korean products that steps farther than your usual "too much anime in this Japanese game" comments.
@@tatsumitwi348 yeah... I really wish it was more common knowledge that the corpo buzzards don't speak for us, they just follow the money. And I think SE is definitely showing signs of a follow the money mentality. Yoshi P did mention GTA5 in the interview his JRPG comment came from. I imagine there was probably some intermingling between well known respected game companies and SE probably endured a fair amount of snubbing from NA big wigs. They probably get tons of condescending questions from journalists who fancy themselves the authorities on quality. Just knowing how ugly it gets now that gaming is such a massive market, you're probably right.
I was thinking about it myself recently and one of the biggest thing that sets JRPG's apart to me are party mechanics and thought "Party-control" or "Party-based" RPG or PRPG was the first idea that popped into my mind. But it just doesn't sit well when exceptions do exist.
I don't see why JRPG shouldn't be used. They're Japanese RPGs. If you go to a sushi or hibachi place you wouldn't shy away from calling it a Japanese steakhouse? Would you? Any more than you would go to a place that serves predominantly Pasta based food items and not call it Italian. It just seems like needless nitpicking to have a problem with the term JRPG. Even the Soulsbourne type games, with their clear western inspired design choices, have enough Japanese DNA in their design that I consider them JRPGs. I don't think that JRPG causes any confusion or has any need to be so analyzed honestly
RPGs are such a diverse genre that oversimplifying it doesn't really do them justice, I don't see a lot of people talk about souls games as JRPGs, mainly because it doesn't fit into the idea of what people picture "JRPGs" to be (as in the standard laid out by Dragon Quest, group of heroes embarking on an adventure) I've also heard the term SRPG thrown around to describe games like fire emblem. If we can use SRPG, NRPG is also a good category :) great video as usual Derek
Souls-borne games are unique in that they are largely WRPGs that were created and have origin in Japan. This really muddys the waters of our sub-genre naming conventions. Because JRP and WRPG are both supposed to denote a style of game based on where they originated. Even there we had to create more terms like SRPG and CRPG to denote styles of games like Baulders Gate, Fallout 1&2, and Final Fantasy Tactics.
However, denoting a style of game based on its origin is confusing to many people because they dont know what to call a JRPG made in the west like Echoed Chains or a WRPG made in Japan like Elden Ring. This is especially confusing for young people who werent alive or gaming when these terms first arose to denote a difference between radically different subgenres of RPG.
To me, these designations make complete sense, but i recognize that is because Im 36 years old and was there when these terms first started gaining popularity as a means to describe characteristics of those games.
It is also weird especially since souls borne games take direct inspiration from dark fantasy Mangas like Berserk and even Ghibli anime movies. I find it weird that these games aren't called jrpgs since there are so many references to Japanese culture.
@@toledochristianmatthew9919 yeah I personally can't think of a whole lot of western RPGs designed like souls games (aside from souls likes) if we're defining JRPGs as RPGs with their design and narrative influenced by Japanese culture then I'd absolutely put souls games under that umbrella
Nah, I will not stop using the term JRPG and even less coming from someone that works at SE. I had seen many other developers also using the term JRPG used to describe their games. The term these days are refereed to games that have certain characteristics. Many of them have the anime look on them for example.
I'm going to wait for the release of FFXVI before I say more to this, because I have a hunch that this is just to be used as an excuse for some some design choices in FFXVI, which will align it more with RPGs with western design.
Interesting theory! I wonder though if this is just a matter of Yoshi P's comments being blown way out of proportion?
@@SuperDerek MIght be, it could be a slight mistranslation and we all know how that goes. He said in the newest interview about FFXVI that Clive than earn more inventory slots, and I already said in the one video with differences between WRPGs and JRPGs, that the inventory works differently in both of them. That's why.
I also think, based upon the conversation I'm seeing here, if FF 16 is being pulled away from what are traditionally considered "JRPG" style design choices, then I'll have zero interest in it. The only games I buy anymore are Japanese, and I despise ALL Western RPGs. "JRPG" is a term I use respectfully to describe the sorts of games I want to play. I'm all for evolving genres, but only to a point. But certain aspects of game design are what give a series its personality. Final Fantasy was always turn based. Star Ocean and the Tales games were always action oriented, but still an encounter based system. Dark Souls using western ideas is one thing. It was a new IP when Demons Souls came out, so it made its own personality. Taking existing series such as Final Fantasy and undermining them by trying to make them like other series or other genres or based on Western ideas ruins the experience. That's where we got travesties like FF 12, 13, and 15.
Square releases so many games and IPs that they can take the experimental nonsense they've tried to force into Final Fantasy for the last 20 years and put that into something else. I think it would go over much better if they kept FF the way it should be and save the generic action RPG crap for lesser titles.
Also, I have zero respect for Yoshi P. if he plans to bastardize the FF series and the JRPG genre by moving it the direction being discussed here. If I wanted to play Western RPGs I'd play them. But I don't, so I don't
I've always found "JRPG/WRPG" to be really nebulous terms. I've been calling them narrative/linear and open RPGs instead for a while and I'd hope to see that catch on.
@@kaizokujimbei143 Yeah. I prefer JRPG meaning "RPG made in Japan" et al.
Since they're such broad terms though that they aren't useful outside of shallow profiling.
Wasn't considered a negative, it was consider cool. People were playing JRPG, Listening to J-Pop and watching J-Horror back in the 90s, If you into cars you know what JDM is. Japan always been associated with cool and quality. That's not just any RPG that's a Japanese RPG.. It's like how people see South Korea now with K-pop and K-Dramas and Samsung but back then it was like Sony, Cars, Anime, Video Games. The 2000s was Japanese Horror movie boom. Weird to think JRPGs as a negative. I've heard Anime Games and Weebs games used as a negative but not Japanese RPG. I would have never found this channel if i was looking for some JRPGs to play.
You're never going to get fans of Western RPGs to go along with calling JRPGs "NRPGs", or even hear it without losing it in some cases. Because a lot of western RPGs are also big on writing and storytelling. You also can't group all RPGs that are big on story together, because they're still widely different. Linear vs. open storytelling being the obvious difference.
Yoooo!!! This Sexy Derek voiceover is fire 🔥 🔥 🔥!!!! I want more lol. But seriously, I’m a Hispanic American, and I see the term “JRPG” as a manner of defining masterclass style of games. But I also don’t really like being labeled and placed in a box, so to speak so I kind of see where he is coming from. But yea, the Japanese are examples of how to master something to a razor sharp edge. So when it comes to games, they make some of the best games ever.
JRPGs rarely have character creation options. That really used to stand out for me.
So witcher 3 is a jrpg. Sweet.
@@danieladamczyk4024 Hence the word "rarely".
Back in the 90s, before voice acting, you used to be able to give the main character and sometimes other character or your pets/binds a name. Often there wouldn't even be a canonical one pre-filled. And you do get character growth options, which weapons you choose, which abilities you level etc.
1. One guy's opinion isn't necessarily representative of all Jrpg developers in Japan, in my opinion.
2. Jrpg is an art style rather than a geographical product.
3. This trend in which everyone is offended by something and everyone should bend to our own sensibilities is nonsense; if someone in my private personal life asks me politely that I call him or her in a specific way, I will probably agree (except if it's detrimental to the person's mental or physical health, enabling delusions or disorders), otherwise I say NO!, you don't like it, well grow up, get therapy, and develop some emotional repertoire.
I will keep calling JRPGs, JRPGs and there's nothing anyone can do to change that.
No it isn't an art style its indicative of where its made, Western RPG's are made in the West, JRPG's are made in Japan
@@boscotheman82 NO! The style, as it is in art, transcends the location where it was conceived for the first time.
I always understood it as a form of shorthand to describe how the game is designed and what kind of gameplay to expect as a media consumer.
This is what... the third interview by Yoshi-P taken out of context in relation to FFXVI?
Thank you for being part of the solution and conversation, rather than dismissing Yoshida's feelings or dumping the term altogether without a backup.
Too many people online are offended over Yoshida's perceived offense and it's draining
JRPGs are like visual novels with extra steps
Some of them are.
My man Derek is doing his best Steve Blum impression in this vid
You get a gold star! Was totally channeling my inner "Tom from Toonami" for this one. :)
Had to do a double take to check the channel when I started the vid. 😂😂
Do you have a cold, or did you decide to do a different narration style? I like it, it’s just a very different tone than you normally have.
Thanks! No cold today, knock on wood. Was just aiming for a relaxed "Tom" from Toonami vibe this time around. I don't know how well I hit the mark but thought this delivery lent itself well to this topic. :)
@@SuperDerek That’s great, that means you can do it more often. :) I think the tone is great for a serious topic.
I don’t think we need to get rid of the term JRPG, but might I suggest the term “Quest-like” as an alternative? The genre we love traces its origin back to Dragon Quest, after all.
Interesting thought! As long as people don't mistake us for talking about games like Quest 64... >.>
I'm not a smart man. I don't have the intelligence to categorize entire genres of games with vast differences in mechanics, story-telling and focus into nice, tidy buckets that provide a handle that makes logical sense. I just know that when I see a youtube video with Instructor Sara Valestein in the title card, I'm clicking on that video and watching it to completion.
Based. Purple lightning stays winning.
Heck yeah. She's such an incredible character! :)
A very insightful take, thank you!
I'm surprised by this! Also side not - Your voice gives me ASMR. 😅
Elden Ring and Pokemon are both JRPGs. They are both RPGs and they are both made in Japan. Pokemon plays like a traditional JRPG while Elden Ring has evolved from a traditional JRPG, but is still a JRPG at its core.
The fact that we’re worried about the term, jRPG, and not other substantially more serious matters going on in the world let me know how in trouble we truly are as a society and a planet
So, because greater things happen, we must stop having any niches and nerdy trends and make 100% of all youtube videos about life-changing important stuff? Truly absurd.
We can be worried about multiple things at the same time.
those things must not be very important since this is what you felt was worth commenting on...
I work in product categorization. Seems to me we need multi level categories. Family > Category. Origin like Japan is a product attribute and not a category.
Since games are an interactive medium. I think method of interaction seems the proper family.
Tried my hand at a few as a POC to get started...
Turn based:
>Narrative turn (trails)
>Adventure turn (dragon quest)
>Strategy turn (fire emblem)
>Collectathon turn (Pokemon)
Action based:
>Adventure action (Zelda)
>Narrative action (last of us)
>Strategy action (StarCraft)
>Sports
>Racing
>Platformer
Visual novel (ace attorney)
Puzzle(Tetris)
Would like to know what you think of this as a base! I tried to group by the primary means of player interaction.
Dude, this is my _jam!_ This is the kind of discussion I love to see. I think that there would be some tricky ones to classify, like the Tales of games for instance, but it's a heck of a start. It all kind of comes down to what people will accept.
I wonder how it is that other media genres became well established? Part of me thinks it had to occur from a top-down, rather than ground-up approach, right? Like through libraries, or retail stores?
Strategy games can also be divided into more sub categories like real-time strategy (RTS) like Starcraft or Age of Empires, or turn-based. Games like Pokémon Mystery Dungeon could also fall into an entirely different sub-category altogether, as it's usually called a "dungeon-crawler", but it's also turn-based... and technically also an RPG... The way I see it, categorizing video games feels more like identifying genuses and species in the plant and animal kingdoms. So many sub-categories and genres that blends together that it's very tough to pinpoint what the ACTUAL genre is supposed to be..
Brigandine for example, is a strategy game, where you choose a country, then organize each troops by having you basically collect monsters to then rearrange into a unit with a knight commander, and then move them aroud the castles in your domain to then attack neighboring countries. Once an invasion starts you are then thrown into what basically is a turn-based strategy, akin to Fire Emblem of Final Fantasy Tactics, except the tiles are hexagonal, allowing for more movement options...
Lets not forget that each monster you summon has a mana cost, magic cost, and upkeep, and you need to literally master addition and subtraction, as the knight commanders have a set of "magic pool" that can only allow a set number of monsters in their troop (max of 6). Say, a dragon costs 75, and a unicorn costs 45. So that makes 120. A knight should have at least 120 magic pool or more to be able to control these monsters.
TL:DR: Brigandine is, in a broader sense, a strategy game, but the sub-categories being monster collection, resource management, turn-based strategy, AND also an RPG, Since you take the "role" of a country (specifically its ruler), and conquer the entire continent to see how the story goes for that nation. Also how the story of the game is presented is done in a visual novel style.
Personally, I'd categorize Brigandine as a "Japanese Style Turn-based Strategy Role Playing Game." or JSTSRPG, for short lol
Tell me why Derek sounds like Steve Blum in this video!
Love the dichotomy between Hitpoint Derek and video essay Derek X'D
True RPG is only JRPG
Wow, I always thought JRPG meant "junior" RPG as in cartoony-style/no blood. 😂 thanks for the informative video! Newly subbed.
JRPG is a badge of honor it means its a good rpg.
Or one who is just two planks and a nail with japanese anime since japan didn't keep up in the industry.
If we were to be more exact a lot of them are more like "Interactive Novels." Going back to the days of Table Top RPGs, you made a lot of choices that affected the trajectory of the story and how events unfold. This honestly translated over to a lot of digital RPGs, even ones that were purely text without any graphics. JRPGs on the other hand unfolded a lot like a novel where instead of deciding the trajectory of the story you were just discovering pre-scripted events much like you would do in a novel. The gameplay portion of JRPGs is also often unrelated to expanding how you can manipulate the world and more like studying so you can pass a test that allows you to uncover more of the story.
Going back to the first Dragon Quest, the gameplay loop was simply "grind until you are strong enough to reach the next town." And that's all.
Interactive Novels could be a real contender! I added "anime" to the mix to impart a style, but it's totally optional. EarthBound for instance could totally be an Interactive Novel, for instance.
@@SuperDerek I feel like calling anything a type of "novel" would draw comparisons to Visual Novels which are substantially light on the gameplay aspect
This is a good argument and, logically, I can’t disagree. For some reason it just doesn’t feel right, maybe because there is a certain non-linearity and an amount of exploration that is lost in using “Novel” to describe the story. At the same time, it’s not quite a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, either, because most don’t allow for multiple endings.
I don’t really have an alternative that approaches it from this angle; My own thoughts lean towards “PRPG” for “Party-Based RPG”, but even there it’s not cut/dried because of games like Nier Automata …
@@jean-pierrejoubert6140 I consider the Nier games to be a lot closer to something like whatever you would say Zelda games are. Especially Replicant is very Zelda like.
Side point but I think tabletop RPGs are more mainstream than ever (Relatively speaking obv) in part due to things like Critical Role.
Honestly It will be hard in the west since for years now the term Jrpg stands not only stand for an rpg made in Japan but one that meets a certain level of quality ( and set of troupes).
Fps and all the other terms don't have a cultural or ethnic connotation tied to them. We don't have brpgs or prpgs, Brazil or Poland. It's a big whatever. They've always just been RPGs. It'll happen organically not to worried bout this nontroversy.
Well, the classic distintion is between JRPGs and Western RPGs, the latter are usually more true to the D&D formula, not in combat mechanics, but the more open-ended and loose narrative.
What you're talking about could be another sub-division inside JRPGs that are varied in so many ways.
Now many games adopted many usual RPG traits, from item levels, stats everywhere, etc.
I've thought a lot about stopping use of the word JRPG for a long time because it isn't inherently descriptive of the type of games I like such as narrative rich game with turn based combat. Yet that's not really a genre naming convention.
Pretty much. The genre naming system is pretty broken. So I'm at the table today not to bend the knee to Yoshi P or whatever, but just because this exact conundrum has been on my nerves for a long time.
Narrative Driven RPG makes no sense as a term because the entire genre of RPG is narrative driven.
Given or maded narration?
@@danieladamczyk4024 what?
@@JIreland1992 Do you make your own story or follow already existing one?
In real RPG you are writer of your destiny, well depend how much DM allowes.
Only few video games is close to be RPG.
@@danieladamczyk4024 it’s a bit of both. RPG’s offer freedom in how to tackle each story, but the story itself is usually already written.
@@JIreland1992 Neutral approach.
You right about RPG being driven by story.
Yet again, "RPG" is about making story. Other games are about following it.
So Mass Effect isn't a RPG
But Stellaris is.
I hear what you're saying, but I personally don't like the turn "narrative role playing games" it doesn't sound like something I'd ever play because when I here that, I don't think traditional jRPG, I think of game like the last of us and Spider-man.
I get that it makes no sense to use the turn Japanese role playing game when Japanese has *nothing* to do with the game. But language is used to convey what one person thinks to another. If people know what you mean when you say jRPG, then the term is for filling a useful purpose.
Agreed. Genre names are all intended to help be short-handed and effective communication of a huge set of ideas. I've heard "interactive novels" in these comments, I thing that one could have some legs. Maybe.
If people know.
I can see a few options, but I definitely think “JRPG” never actually quite worked, anyway. (See: the Soulsborne debate)
I really like AIN a lot!
I could also see replacing RPG altogether being more doable than we think. It’s always been a nebulous and debated term, so what even really are we doing? Why not just say something simple and intuitive
like “Fantasy Adventure” and just include games like Zelda and God of War, already. When it comes to sub genres, save the “Role Play” label exclusively for games where you create a custom character and make choices that have real effects, and maybe refer to some as “Anime Fantasy Adventure,” we can always be a bit more descriptive, as we already do, as well, with things like “Turn-based, Action, Real-Time Command, Tactics”…
Idk, just spit balling here.
"Anime fantasy adventure" sounds good! I think it captures a lot of games I love, like Grandia and Lunar! :)
I remember when I was a kid I'd played Final Fantasy 2/4, Earthbound & a number of other titles before playing Mario RPG, but hadn't heard the term Role Playing Game before so I came up with my own conclusion. I thought it stood for Real People Graphics because Mario RPG used 3D renders to make up its sprites.
I don't remember when exactly I learned the correct term but I'm sure it wasn't long after that. With so many games including RPG Stat elements now it almost feels like gaming genres as a whole are blurring & fading away, not that I've got a good idea for quickly describing how a game plays with a generic term.
I never seen anyone on TH-cam complain about this, what’s the controversy? Can someone link a video?
SkillUp's video on FFXVI - Yoshi P said that among japanese developers JRPG is a term that can carry a lot of baggage.
Yoshi P literally dropped the mic with that statement, and it's good to see many engage with what he said. You can even go back to reviews, previews and articles from the erm...'dark days of Japanese gaming' (approx 2005-2011)? and check out the cringey articles from western journalists which confirm what Yoshi P stated in his interview
I'd be fine with AIN. I mean, the games I love most are ones with great, epic stories, often emphasizing the core story over the player's ability to create or select a story of their own, unlike Western RPGs where they try to make your actions far more impactful. And yeah, I play them to a large extent for those core stories, so they are kind of life living in a novel. Honestly, the two are entirely separate genres of game that just happen to have some similar mechanics, mechanics that are becoming more common in an increasingly broad range of genres in any case. Makes sense to try and put more emphasis on the unique characteristics that make this stand out, and since these are like moving around inside a light novel, AIN seems fitting.
That said, the whole "not Japanese" thing will remain since we do still have "Not an anime" arguments. And that's fine, there is merit there. I can still see differences between stories written in anime/manga/light novel style that came from Japanese or Western creators. Even when stories from either side put focus on the same principles, there's clear differences, I imagine largely due to the authors growing up in places that put different emphasis on these things. Japan was built on different philosophies and beliefs, and this can be seen even when a story encourages the same idea. "Value how a person stands out" comes across differently depending on whether you grew up in a self-oriented nation that emphasizes "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" or a group-oriented society that emphasizes "the nail that stands out needs to be hammered down".
A Japanese developer sharing his own nuanced feelings getting turned into the term jrpg being treated as a slur by twitter people is really annoying.
To further add to my comment. Multiple things can be true at once: the gaming press is biased against Japanese games and the term JRPG doesn’t need to be thrown away.
JRPG is a category of the RPG genre. Same as WRPG, CRPG, and SRPG. There’s nothing derogatory about it, it was clearly a case of misunderstanding/lost in translation.
Yeah I think that the context that you're first introduced to a term will play a huge role in how you view it too.
I vote WWRPGs
Waifu-War RPGs
That's just Sakura Wars.
Alright, gotta ask. The "noir detective" voice something you're trying out, or did I miss a joke?
lol, nah, just a style I was playing with, inspired by some old videos I used to watch featuring the voice of Steve Blum.
@SuperDerek RPGs Constructively, I found it to be fairly distracting. On the topic of the video, I feel like people look for excuses to be upset and JRPG has never felt insulting.
I like the terms prpg and irpg, party roll playing game and individualist roll playing game. That way games like mass efect and dragon age fit with persona 5 and ff7 but games like elden ring ff16 and witcher 3 fit together too.
That's a really well thought-out and constructive video Derek. Story-telling is definitely what I would *want* to focus on in a new term, but that also applies to a lot of Western-style RPGs too, so I feel there's not enough distinction there. I don't know if it adds an extra wrinkle to the conversation, but I was recently interviewed by a Japanese website about my game, and right in the title of the article they described it as a "JRPG". That made me really curious about whether this term is also being used widely by Japanese-speaking fans in RPG circles too - especially since platforms like Steam have a whole category for JRPGs.
I've tried to stick with "Console style RPG" for the last few years when describing something with a clear Dragon Quest herritage, opposed to "Computer style" or "PC style" for the more open ended, western style with a Ultima/Wizzardry herritage. Far from a perfect system but I think it kinda sorta works.
Im pretty sure there were JRPG style games before Dragon Quest on the PC-88 though 🤔
@@sirsquid577 i mean yeah, basically all of Falcoms early products and a lot of others are kind of exceptions to this rule. I think both Dragon Slayer and The Black Onyx were released sometime in 84. Maybe even Hydlide too. Although I would argue they are so early and experimental that they are closer to Ultima and/or Wizzardry than the standard that DQ popularised. So in that regard you could say that the "Computer style" branding would still be accurate.
You hit on a lot of points, and a lot of thoughts I've had on this whole situation myself.
As a side note, the voiceover on this was so smooth, I feel like I need to listen to it in a room with low lighting while sipping a fine wine
Remember all those times X-Play spoke so fondly of JRPGs and Japanese games back in the 2000s?
I 'member. I remember FFX getting torn a new one too because it was a JRPG. I remember them calling Tidus "tight ass" and making all kinds of homophobic jokes too. Game journalists were pretty ruthlessly biased against JRPGs for a long time. Which inspired my channel, in fact.
Way I see it, there are two general styles of (videogame) RPG: One focused on the stats, mechanics and dice rolls, and the vast majority of these games are what we call CRPGs or Western RPGs. The second style is less focused on the rules and more in the narrative and character development, and these are what we call JRPGs.
Since CRPGs are RPGs that are closer to Dungeons and Dragons, Tunnels and Troll and Traveller, these games should be called RPGs.
Since JRPGs are based on CRPGs but streamlined, light on rules, they should be called Lite RPGs.
A change in name is necessary because there are many people who hold the idea that JRPGs are only made in Japan/by Japanese people. For them, Cosmic Star Heroine, Ara Fell or Rise of the Third Power are not JRPGs because they were made by Americans. At the same time, they don't think Dark Souls or Dragon's Dogma are JRPGs, even when they are RPGs made in Japan, by Japanese people.
There are some possible names:
CRPG ------------- JRPG
RPG --------------- Lite RPG
Crunch RPG --- Fluff RPG
RPG --------------- Narrative RPG
JRPG to me is the true essence of what a role playing game is supposed to be, a collection of gameplay elements that’s synonymous with the genre: Affinities, weaknesses, equipment, stats, min / maxing, turned-based action, strategic combat and team composition, the list goes on.
No one does it better than Japanese developers with their distinct style, and unique point of view that stems from their culture. This is the reason why I don’t enjoy western RPGs, it doesn’t have the elements I enjoy or the artistic aesthetic. Japanese developers ooze creativity, and it shows in their diverse library of games.
I think alternative terms just complicate things because with JRPG we all have probably something similar in mind. If we create new terms where western RPGs could also fit in, we would probably add that we mean games from japan and with that it just goes full circle back to the term JRPG.
The Final Fantasy producer should just accept that we in the west use other terms. I mean if we talk about anime we mean animation from japan. But in japan the term anime includes everything animated including western cartoons like Spongebob or the Simpsons, we don't do that. The same thing for manga, where comics like Hulk or Spiderman are called manga in Japan.
And just a reminder for the producer, in japan they use the term J-POP and K-POP for japanese and korean music, shouldn't they change the terms to pop only if this is discriminatory? They wouldn't do it because they just make sense.
why should we? Yoshi P seems to be the only person who vocally hates the term which...is odd seeing as Square and Enix popularized the term in the first place
If saying JRPG is offensive, then stay away from me and leave me alone.
It's not. People are just taking Yoshida out of context. Most of this video is focused on other aspects of the genre, it's history, and why we might want to move onto something more functional anyway.
Absolutely not. There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It let's you know you're in for a phenomenal gaming experience
I saw video of western developer say 'jrpg' sucks to a freelance japanese game dev, in a conference, and the whole room laugh. Also when head of IGN (cmiiw) in the past mock turn-based RPG. So I kinda understand why Yoshi P feel like that. Need to understand that Japanese have a lot of pride for their work.
I've loved the genre since the SNES was a current-gen console, and it'll be my favorite until I die, most likely. I think this is an interesting topic, and it's brought up a lot of old videos and feelings in the community. I figured I'd share my take.
I never used the term "JRPG" growing up. I didn't personally hear or read anyone using the word until Western RPGs started becoming more popular on consoles. A friend used the term "WRPG" around me when discussing games like Morrowind and KOTOR. After this, I started hearing more people use "JRPG" to discuss the games we all know and love. I'm not saying this is where the term started, but it's when I first started hearing people use the phrases "WRPG" and "JRPG."
I've never had anyone in real life use the JRPG acronym as an insult. Online, I've seen people who dislike the genre speak poorly of it. Most of the negativity surrounding the genre that I can remember came from game journalists in the late PS2 era and then during the PS3/360 era. You might have seen some of the old Xplay reviews that have resurfaced where the hosts try to bury JRPGs and say some racist BS.
The PS3/360 generation was tough for the genre. There were some gems that came out, but a lot of series died. Thankfully, things turned around, and there was a resurgance. Japanese games became much more popular again during the PS4 era.
I don't personally think that JRPG is a derogatory term. I just think that there have been game journalists and crappy people who have used the word in negative ways in the past.
Replacing the term would be fine. I think you'd get a lot of pushback for "NRPG" though. I think that unless Japanese devs come out and say that they would like the term JRPG to cease being used, it should remain as a genre descriptor. Or we could just be very specific and say "turn-based RPG," "character action RPG," and "strategy RPG" instead of lumping everything together. Sorry for the long-windedness, but I figured I'd throw my opinion out there.
With how easy it is to offend someone in this world today, I try not to think about it too much. It’s impossible to make everyone happy and that is a fact. That being said “Party Focused RPGs” may fit the bill.
Let's be real, most gamers grew up with these terms and are unlikely to give it up. It's like how Nintendo doesn't want people to use "metroidvania" and instead insists on using their term "search action". It hasn't stuck and probably never will.