What JRPG are you playing now?

[exdeath]

John2290 said:

exdeath said:

If you just want photorealistic free for all reality simulators with no soul or story sure...

I enjoy games like Fallout but western games cannot beat the tragedy and suspense of stuff like Xenoblade Chronicles (first one) or the heartwarming tales of stuff like Ni no Kuni.  There's just a magic in JRPGs that you will not find in western games which often appeal to the lowest common denominator American casual gamer who looks at graphics and world size first and lean more towards guns and action in a FPS format.

I dig western RPGs for the exploring and free roaming and piecing the back story of a post apocolyptic world from undiscovered records and logs of places I discover, eg, Fallout, but when I want to feel my manovaries leaking and give myself an emotional breakdown, nothing beats a tragic JRPG with a sweeping symphony string musical score and dramatic voice acting and spine tingling plot twists and heavy meaning of life type story revelations.

The witchery 3 has enough soul for every western game. And if you are not Japanese you will never interpret a JRPG in the way the creatorsite intended. You will mistake social and culturalal difference's for something that is not there and fantasy in your own mind. Which is fantastic and the reason I love Japanese games, just don't go spitting around that they have more soul because all they have is a different perspective and one the is very skewed for you towards fantasy...If the made a JRPG that was a simulation of everyday life in Japan it would still hook you in this way. Soul does not equal perceived cultural fantasy. Also, Dragon age is remarkably soul full, I have only played Inquisition but it is full to the brim with more character driving story than a barrel full of Jrpg stuff. 

Pretty sure bioprogenitor capable interstellar weapons crash landing on a planet and sparking the genesis of life on that world doesn't have anything to do with Japanese culture or society or being Japanese.

Themes of tragedy, sacrifice, betrayal, redemption, innocence, self discovery, justice, origin of life, god, morality, etc.

Those types of themes are the staple of JRPG stories and have nothing to do with being Japanese.

It's also the presentation and choreography.  Purposely timed fades, zooms, pans, and cuts all carefully synced with both background music cresendos and the delivery of emotional character dialog in notebly emotionally distraught dramatic voice acting.

None of these things that make up the whole of a JRPG have anything to do with being Japanese.

All these things have existed since the before the days of Shakespeare even.  

The only thing uniquely Japanese about them is they seem to be the only developers that can consistently encompass all of these things in their RPGs.  I can count on 1 hand the number of western games that have moved me as much as the average good JRPG.  The Witcher and Mass Effect being two of them.  But even those are still not on the same level as sustained drama and suspense as something like Xenoblade Chronicles.

Most western games only pretend to be tragic in their 15 second intro movies.

Oh your family was killed when your village was raided.  Go get revenge.  Rar smash and kill stuff and get revenge and heres an open realistic world full of dungeons with dragons and skeletons to slay endlessly.  Ok off you go. The end.