| naznatips said: Ugh, this one bothers me a lot: The Video Game definition of an RPG is not the same as the pen and paper definition. Why? Because they are freaking video games. Now, it's fine if you want to say WRPGs are related to them and JRPGS are not. That's true enough, but the fact is that the JRPG genre is established, and I'm tired of hearing people bitch about the fact that it uses the word "RPG." Deal with it. The fact that it's not all that closely related to the 34 year old Pen & Paper RPG genre does not make it automatically less original though. |
It's the actual phrase that bothers me. Media shouldn't matter. In any case, I'm resigned to JRPGs being called that. Not a big deal, it just doesn't accurately represent the actual definition of the genre.
I don't think that linear games are any less "original" than open world games. It's just that one genre has evolved constantly since its inception while the other really hasn't. I'm not saying that JRPGs need to be open, but something should be changing as time passes. I play Blue Dragon and it's hard for me to really see the difference in gameplay from FFVII, other than superficial power-ups/leveling/etc. I'm not bashing Blue Dragon, for I thought it was quite good (better than LO IMO), it just felt... comfortable. Like I've done it a million times before. While that's cool to have in gaming, I would also like to see some of the mainstream Japanese RPG developers put out a top-shelf game that breaks the mold a bit. Change things up, see how it works.
...
Honestly, now that I think more about it, I might have more of a beef with Square-Enix than I do with the actual JRPG genre. Some of the smaller JRPGs do mix things up a bit. They just don't sell well or don't get imported here at all.
Or check out my new webcomic: http://selfcentent.com/
