| DogRemag said: There are no WRPGs with the writing on the level of the best JRPGs. Yes WRPG is more open and none linear, but that does not equal quality. WRPGs just give you tons of options with no memorable story. I loved Dragon Age origins and Skyrim, but they lacked an engaging story the way Dragon Quest 8, Dark loud 2 and FF7 had. There were no memorable characters either, which is what make RPGs great to begin with. The battle system in Skyrim was just hack n slash, but DA had a good battle system. Everything else you named also give JRPgs an edge do to better design, art direction and more interesting archetypes.WRPGs have those dull, generic, boring and personality less characters that do not separate them form the FPS games. |
If anything the writing in JRPGs are usually bad. The characters have poorly fleshed out thoughts and there is no depth to the actual story itself. Linear also doesn't mean that it's quality either. Memorable story is subjective and I thought that Fallout 3 had just as big of an impact emotionally compared to FF VII. Having choices means that I can mold whatever character I wish and that's a good thing. Dragon Quest and Dark Cloud also didn't have very engaging stories either due to the fact that it was your stereotypical JRPG beat up the bad guy and save the world generic crap but WRPGs are also guilty of this too but their more in depth about it so I can forgive them. Memorable characters aren't what makes an RPG. An RPG is about being able to assume multiple roles in a game. Design and art direction is also very subjective too since nobody likes japanese culture anymore in their games so I'll take western fantasy over cliche japanese centric fantasy.
Boring gameplay (JRPG) vs Boring characters (WRPG)
It's your call ... Personally speaking though I think WRPGs excel in both categories.
