How is a JRPG an RPG? The J man has to know.

[.jayderyu]

Words Of Wisdom said:

.jayderyu said:
Now of course many WRPG aren't any more RPG than JRPG, but give more of an illusion of an RPG. NWN main story is not an RPG, but is a Freeform APTG. NWN2 does a better job, becuase there is more influence and interaction. KoToR by the same reasoning borders the line. While KoToR 2 just crosses the line to an RPG.(Notice how the part 2s are from Obsidion which have members from Black Isle. BI the RPG division of Interplay. Interplay creating Fallout.)

Fallout, Dagger Fall(haven't played Morrowind or Oblivion), Sea Dogs*, Mount & Blade* are the only WRPG that I could easily classify as RPG. They let the player control the show and how well they control the show depends on the avatar abilities, not raw player skill.

The character depth and interaction of KotOR1/2 are pretty much identical and your choices have about the same weight on the story in each (Light or Dark for the most part).  Even some of the characters in KotOR2 are almost clones of ones in KotOR.

And despite mentioning Black Isle you don't mention Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, or Planescape Torment.  At least two of which considered by many to be among the best computer RPGs of all-time.  Of course, pretty much any game built with the Infinity Engine was destined for greatness in that time period.

You can make lots of big statements but your claims end up pretty shallow if you don't have the knowledge to back them up or your premise is wrong.

The mistaken premise is basing that the only influnce the payers have on the game world is centered on the Avatar and not the game world. It's influencing the game world through the avatar that really defines whats an rpg rather than having the trappings and being good. I didn't mention Icewind Dale(BI), PlaneScape(BI), Baldurs Gate(BioWare) because they fall mostly into the same group of having interaction, but little influence. More like discovering the pages of a book. Doing a side quest to bring back a locket and having them change a small bit of text I would not classify as highly interactive game world. To be fair though I never tried vast interaction with those ones. I never tried having the town owner ship change hands or eliminating the defenders.

KoToR is another matter. KoTor is more like a tree that start at the trunk and moves to the highest point with all it's main quests. Starts at a base point and ends at the same point. You can choose friendly or mean along the path, but the end result is that it's the same. KoToR 2 has numeruos points where you can change areas one way or another. You can overthrow a government or help the defending government. You can help a mad wooky or help the girl. These result that theres more than one offshoot when you leave thus leaving behind an area with your options influencing the show. KoToR does give you chunk choices, but little change out side of a simple binary flag once finished an area. KoToR did at least have the Wookie planet that seemed to give you a choice on what you leave behind.

Multiple endings aren't needed. It's the path on how you get there and what you have left behind. This more of a case of crpg in general. crpg writers really can't make infinite endings.

Keep in mind I don't advocate that a good game has to be an rpg. I thought PlaneScape torment was awesome with so many little things to discover. It was very engrossing. For the most part though it was a on rails story. I didn't like Icewind Dale as much, and Baldurs Gate was good, but I never finished.