WRPGs versus JRPGs, or: My mis-adventures in KOTOR

[zarx]

Jumpin said:

This is a pretty silly conversation. There is no "JRPG" or "WRPG" genres, W - refers to western and J - refers to Japan; these are geographical locations, not something that should be included in the name of a genre; it is irrational to label a genre as "JRPG" or "WRPG".

In addition, there was no term as "JRPG" until after the release of Knights of the old Republic, and it was mostly invented by fans of that game as a negative label to disparage more popular titles like Final Fantasy. The term "WRPG" was just a backlash to this.

What you should be talking about are console RPGs which use lighter more console friendly mechanics vs PC RPGs which use the more complex keyboard and mouse friendly mechanics; in addition PC style RPGs usually focus on a more sandbox style world while Console style RPGs focus on storylines and character development due to the differences - these definitions have been around since the 80's; and are much more accurate, because both Western and Japanese game developers make console and of style RPGs. In Japan, the genre of console RPG is broken down further into turn-based RPGs, Strategy RPG, and Action RPGs, Roguelike RPGs, and Tactical RPGs; and even those are broken down a little further or have hybrid forms - I.e. while Chrono Trigger, Lunar, and Skies of Arcadia are turn based RPGs, they also bring in light strategy elements to varying degrees.

While I agree the terms are stupid, they are pretty entrenched now, even big sites use the term these days. And PC RPG and Console RPG are pretty meaningless as well as there are console RPG games that play more like your PC RPG description than some PC RPGs and vice verser. 

Really we should just call them RPGs and their gameplay derived sub genres, but people are far to attached to their prefered style of RPG whatever it is. And people will continue to draw arbitary lines in the sand so that they can spit on the other side.

RPG is such a muddled ambigious genre in the first place where 2 different games that are almost nothing alike can both be called an RPG. And you ask 10 different gamers and you would get at least 7 different answers to the question of what makes a game an RPG.