That's not right either. I dont believe that JRPG's now have more limitation's than they did back then, but they have not outgrown the limitation's that they had back then. Is there any reason why JRPG's still use Final Fantasy X map structure when game's like Dragon Quest 8, Final Fantasy 12, and Xenoblade had a real time overworld. I dont want to go backward. I want to go forward. That's what this thread is about. JRPG's going forward when it comes to how their world design is approached. I'm bored/tired of 6th/5th gen style JRPG's

JRPGs are still my favourite Genre and my most beloved ones are from the PS2/PS3/PSP era. I think that they have progressed and evolved much in the last years.

For me the defining factor of a JRPG is the story. JRPGs are a form in art in my opinion. The developer puts very much thoughts into a game and wants to express something about a deep moral dilemma (religion like in FFX, nature vs culture, free will or destiny,...). They create the game world around one or more moral dilemmas and create characters/roles to make you see the dilemma from different points of view. After beating the game you should have a deeper insight in the moral dilemma and should have been able to understand each side in this conflict. A JRPG is not only a game... it should also make you think about life. Thats why many JRPGs are still remembered after so many years.

Early JRPGs followed the HERO vs. Villain story, but modern JRPGs started to go away from "Main Characters" and gave the whole party more importance in the story. They also went away from the old "the villain is a villain because he is simply plain evil" and started to make you understand his motivation for his actions (like Barthandelus, Sephiroth or Kuja).

The Story and the character roles are the most important aspects of a JRPG for me. Without it the game would only be a strategy game (roundbased combat) or an action/adventure. A good JRPG is just more than a game. It is a piece of art, like a good theatre play, book or film.

I do not have a great opinion about western, open-world RPGs. For me, they are lacking the RPG aspect because they do not focus on the story, the characters role in the story etc. They are action/Adventures with battlesystem that relies on RPG-Elements.

You can make your own characters, but your choices do only have impacts on the battlesystem, not on the game. You will play exactly the same game storywise no matter how you build your character. The choice is ultimately only an illusion.

You can make many choices throughout the game, but often the choices do not matter much or you can't foresee the impacts of your choices because you do not have all the necessary informations to make an educated decision. Ultimately there are only a few endings and despite all choices the possible endings are all written down. It is still a linear game, but you have decision trees you have to follow. There is no real freedom, just the illusion of free will.

Often WRPGs have an extremely weak and forgetabble main quest and offer hundreds of sidequests instead. But the quality of the sidequests is often bad. They are uninspired and repetitive. While a sidequest in a JRPG often gives you access to unique items like ultimate weapons, stong magic spells or summons or at least give you more background information about your characters a Sidequest in a WRPG often only gives you random items (like the diablo-style looting system) or some xp points. Often I have the feeling that the sidequests are only there so that the huge world simply do not feel so empty. They are filler content.

All in all I do not mind that JRPGs are outsold by other games. Everyone has its specific tastes and a game is not with less only because CoD or Skyrim sold more. Sales do not equal quality. For me JRPGs are pieces of Art and I like the way they are heading. Exploration is not that important for me... I am all about Story.

It doesn't.

Like i stated, these are definitions of ages ago and should be taken with a certain understanding for loss of meaning.

That's just one way to look at it. RPG also mean you get to choose the class  of your character through leveling up certain stats, choose the preferable weapons / skills / spells in battle while telling a good story ( or any story at all ).  Carve your own story with your own character are just words really, most if not all player driven RPGs are absolutly shallow in term of story and depth of characters. Different aims, different styles .. not "poor" or anything like that.

The thing is that a lot of the games people call "WRPGs" have taken on so many other elements that the actual RPG elements have been eclipsed. A good example are the mass effect games which were fantastic to play if you want to play an action adventure; However, if you have the itch for an RPG, Mass Effect 2 and 3 (I haven't played 1) just do not do a lot to satisfy that itch because the games are bogged down with action, action adventure, and adventure elements.

By action elements, I mean gameplay which is more action driven than stat driven.
By adventure elements, I mean gameplay where users progress and advance by selecting option A, B, C, D, etc from a list of responses, typical of the adventure game genre.
By action adventure elements, I mean navigation where progression has a lot to do with find item to access next area.

While most RPGs have some of these elements, whether they be made in Japan, Europe, the US; it is the American made games that are called RPGs, which actually have their RPG mechanics eclipsed by these action, adventure, and action adventure elements. It would be more accurate to call Mass Effect an action adventure simply because action adventure elements dominate the game.

When I hear the word "Roleplay" the one thing that comes to my mind first is theatre. Even the ancient greeks had roleplay dramas. Back at school we had to read roleplays where you had to adopt a certain role.

One focus of roleplays has always been telling a dramatic story using variuos characters. The drama was not only there for pure entertainment... It should make the people think about the roles of the various characters. These dramas tried to display the deepest moral dilemmas that people are facing in their life. Many great JRPGs follow this form of storytelling. While there are many games, that try to portray human characters (like Heavy Rain, Uncharted, Assassin's Creed) and their story, a JRPG simply has the main focus on this aspect and portrays a much greater number of characters. Suikoden even managed to let you meet over 120 characters.

So, if may use this comparison: A great JRPG is like an interactive theatre drama for me while a WRPGs tries to be an interactive improvisational theatre. It is a form of theatre, but it surely is not the only way of roleplaying.

"Roleplaying means to carve your own story with your own character...". I think that this is a very limiting definition. It is ONE FORM of roleplaying (were you play a non-scripted role). Imagine you are going to play/read something like Hamlet. Are you not playing a role if you play hamlet according to the script? I mean, you are meant to play hamlet according to the script... not the hamlet you would like to be. But nevertheless you are playing a role (hamlet)... you are roleplaying, don't you?.

Thats why I think that JRPGs are RPGs... scripted RPGs. You can take control over given characters and live through the events the scriptwriter wants you to see. But not through the eyes of one (or 2,3,4) character like in an Action-Adventure... He wants you to see the events through the eyes of many characters and during the game you learn a lot of background information about each of these characters (feelings, motivations,etc.). You see the characters react and comment on what is happening. These comments and reactions are not only there for oneliners and entertainment, they are the main fokus of the game. During the dialogue scenes or cutscenes you are like a spectator in the theatre and you have to think about what is going on to fully comprehend the whole story.

if you want that stuff so much, you can find it all in xenoblade.

JRPGs should stick to more traditional features just with better graphics. Currently playing Valkyrie Profile 2 at the moment and as an end of gen PS2 game it looks great and gameplay is with traditional stat building features you'd expect with a JRPG and a very actions like battle system (if not bloody hard).

I'm not sure how to improve the series to more modernise them. SquEnix games this gen haven't been great, and traditional series seem to have vanished. I just think they need to stick to traditional features and improve exploration without padding the game with boring fetch/kill quests.

In light of the JRPG fading into obscurity, it is unsettling to see so many JRPG fan's resistant to advancements. There is a reason Xenoblade and Skyrim are known as the best games in thier RPG styles. They increased the immersion and the lore of their games by simply designing a better world.

The idea that JRPG's widely adopting game design ideas found in Xenoblade or upcoming JRPG's like X or Final Fantasy 15 would magically make them more like western games is unjustified. All that crap that KylieDog (no offense to him) is of no interest to me and is not what Im asking for. Go kill beetles or go fetch that flower on that side of the map and bring it back to me is also not what what I'm asking for (though that crap is still happening in JRPG's anyway). Worlds that better offer the sense of adventure,exploration and more flexibility in how characters interact with their enviorments. I cant not find any harm in that.