Bethesda: Western RPG “More Realistic” Than JRPGs

[Killiana1a]

Khuutra said:

Killiana1a said:

WRPGs are worlds more realistic than JRPGs. I think of realism as a certain number of things (by priority):

1. Real time combat

In a street fight, a giant HUD does not appear in your eyes with "Attack, Magic, Item," while the enemy waits up to 7 days before you pick a choice.

2. Setting

Post apocalyptic anything is more realistic than some fantasy world with chocobos and airships

3. Tolkien precedence

JRR Tolkien created the basis for every WRPG starting with Dungeons & Dragons on up to Dragon Age: Origins. I am unsure where the entire Final Fantasy series fits into the Tolkien perspective. I am not saying that Tolkien has not inspired JRPGs to a large extent, but due to the lack of JRPG developer insight on their ideas, I don't know where they come from.

4. Protagonists, antagonists, and party members

WRPG protagonists come in all shapes, sizes, ugly, attractive, and age. JRPGs, I am picking on Final Fantasy, seem to have 16 year old protagonists who are attactive, slim, and can lift a sword twice the size and weight of them. Cloud from FF7 is the most unbelievable, fantastic protagonist in an RPG ever.

A common and good rebuttal to my points would be "What about the Elder Scrolls series?"

The Elder Scrolls series is grounded strongly in the Tolkien precedence as being a fantasy world with humans, elves, dwarves and dragons. The most unrealstic aspects of the Elder Scrolls series are the cat people and lizard people. Likewise, the Elder Scrolls series does not have a continous war between orcs and men as Warhammer and WarCraft do.

That being said, The Elder Scrolls series is realistic because it has real time combat, is grounded in the Tolkien precedence, and has protagonists, antagonists, and party members of all walks of life.

This is not to say that Final Fantasy games do not have protagonists, antagonists, and party members of all walks of life. They do, but JRPGs like anime, tend to suspend the main cast into a 13-18 age range with teeny boppers wielding 400 pound, 8 foot long battle axes and swords. In contrast, both Sten and Oghren in Dragon Age: Origins are easily believable wielding their two handers due to their strength and background as accomplished, veteran warriors.

The Elder Scroll series is less realistic than the Fallout series, but more realistic than most JRPGs.

1. This has nothing to do with realism and is factually incorrect besides.

The first two Fallout games - in some ways much more grounded and realistic than the third - operate off of a turn-based system. In fact, for a long time the vast majority of WRPGs operated off of turn-based systems, and maybe still do in some way. You're forgetting the roots of the WRPG mechanic being in the d20 system. Lots, and ots, and lots of WRPGs are turn-based. Always have been. Probably always will be.

2. This is nothing more than cultural bias concerning expectations of realistic settings. More, post-apocalyptic settings are only a very narrow subset of WRPG settings (there are probably nenarly as many JRPGs with the same setting), and the vast majority of them, like Dragon Age, ever D&D campaign ever, the majority of GURPs, Mass Effect, KotOR, the Elder Scrolls, etc. occurring in much more fantastical settings.

3. Tolkien just created exectations. That does not make something realistic, it just means it holds to western fantasy archetypes.

4. This is needlessly reductive and ignores good, diverse, at-least-partially ugly casts in JRPGs. Try Fire Emblem, or any game directed by Matsuno. More, it also ignores how many WRPG castts also hold to character archetypes in their own genre.

The majority of what you're describing has nothing to do with realism.

I am not even going to try to refute you points because I am fairly confident just from a cursory read of your posts, that you are far more educated in Western literature than I am. Also, I am respectful and have a strong enough ego that I can allow someone to destroy my logic without resorting to a pointless back and forth of who has the biggest epeenis.

I admit as a US citizen, there is a definite cultural bias. Tolkien from what I understand and have read from my 3rd grade years on in fantasy novels ithe major source of inspiration for Western based role playing games be it D&D or Dragon Age.

I will quibble about the turn-based vs. real time as more realistic. Yes, turn-based was the most prevalent in the past with RPGs I played. That is the past.

However, as more RPGs go from turn-based to real time, I find it mighty unrealistic how each and every Final Fantasy game from the original Final Fantasy still has the trademark "Attack:Magic:Item" menu during combat. JRPGs such as Final Fantasy would be more realistic if they got in line with the times and transitioned into real time.

I am singling out Final Fantasy when I speak of JRPGs because it is very dear series to my heart. I am quite aware of newly released and upcoming JRPGs that are real time. Nier comes to mind.

As for the sci-fi setting of Mass Effect and Star Wars, I am unsure how to grade them on realism as all sci-fi is unbelievable as fantasy based RPGs. In fairness, a talk of RPGs and mentioning "setting" as realism, yes sci-fi is a major detractor to my thrust of "setting" as a realistic debating point.

Speaking of realism, I am starting to think setting is  moot point because each game and each story is unrealistic to a large degree. Henceforth, setting should not be a criterion.