Gameranking's Top J-RPG's of All Time

[Egann]

KylieDog said:

Jumpin said:

Actually, the Japanese and Western being references to locations are precisely what those definitions are. If an RPG is made in Japan, it is Japanese. If it is made in the West it is Western. The regions are not genres. There are many RPG sub-genres such as turn-based RPGs, action RPGs, MMO RPGs, strategy RPGs, etc...

WRPG and JRPG are genre definitions.

Such a confusion is common. A genre identification tells you something about the game itself. The JRPG / WRPG distinction tells you something about the game's design team, and by extension their design philosophy. There is a difference, albeit a subtle one.

I would say that stereotypically the JRPG-WRPG distinction includes a genre distinction, but this is definitely not a hard or fast rule. Stereotypically JRPGs have pre-designed characters going about scripted events in a closed or limited environment that is as polished as possible (Final Fantasy). WRPGs have customizable characters going along in an open, sand-box world (Elder Scrolls). Of course, there are tons of exceptions. Dragon's Dogma and Witcher both leap to mind as games where few of these rules apply.