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Forums - Gaming Discussion - How is a JRPG an RPG? The J man has to know.

memory2zack on 22 October 2008
vlad321 said:

So what exactly do you do to your character except give him a better weapon here or there and wait for him to level up? No decision making at all on the path your characters take. Select a job and that's it. And the fact you have to wait for cooldowns and what not does not change the fact they are turn based. You don't even have control over your character when you do battle. You have control over a pointer which in turn it controls the battle, sprinkle in some itneresting battle mechanics on top of that and you're set. I'm hardly playing my characters. It all comes down to the strategy the person uses and there is very little skill involved.

 

That´s practically not different at all to WRPGs battle-wise. You also upgrade your equipment and weapons. I told you there are many jRPGs that have their own skill system where you choose which abilities to learn, didn´t you understand that? Others that have pre-set jobs don´t. Turn-based means the characters take turns and have to wait before they act, 1 turn=1 action only one character and so on... No time is involved. By your definition of turn-based then practically all RPGs are turn-based in nature. I think you´re mixing up turn with time. There´s no player skill needed in any RPGs, only player choices. The only RPGs that would require minimal skills from the player are pure action RPGs. You do now that consoles have gamepads and not mouse/keyboard combo I hope... With menus and pointers it´s much easier to use the GUI with a gamepad.



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vlad321 on 23 October 2008
can memory2zack said:
vlad321 said:

So what exactly do you do to your character except give him a better weapon here or there and wait for him to level up? No decision making at all on the path your characters take. Select a job and that's it. And the fact you have to wait for cooldowns and what not does not change the fact they are turn based. You don't even have control over your character when you do battle. You have control over a pointer which in turn it controls the battle, sprinkle in some itneresting battle mechanics on top of that and you're set. I'm hardly playing my characters. It all comes down to the strategy the person uses and there is very little skill involved.

 

That´s practically not different at all to WRPGs battle-wise. You also upgrade your equipment and weapons. I told you there are many jRPGs that have their own skill system where you choose which abilities to learn, didn´t you understand that? Others that have pre-set jobs don´t. Turn-based means the characters take turns and have to wait before they act, 1 turn=1 action only one character and so on... No time is involved. By your definition of turn-based then practically all RPGs are turn-based in nature. I think you´re mixing up turn with time. There´s no player skill needed in any RPGs, only player choices. The only RPGs that would require minimal skills from the player are pure action RPGs. You do now that consoles have gamepads and not mouse/keyboard combo I hope... With menus and pointers it´s much easier to use the GUI with a gamepad.

By turn based I meant that you go into battle, and you cant do ANYTHING with your character until his time rolls around. With the rest of the genre you move around, you can walk in and out of battle, you actually control your character when running instad of hoping for a random number. You have control over your character and all his abilities at all times. That's exactly like turn-based games. You got your units on the outside and you can move them around, you get into a battle and you can only use thei abilities and what not and have only certain moves you achieve and you really have no control over the actual units. The difference between an RPG and a JRPG is the exact same difference between an RTS and a TBS.



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835

 

Words Of Wisdom on 23 October 2008
.jayderyu said:

I left BG2 out of my discussion because I haven't played it. I was refering to BG1 and I didn't finish, but I think I already mentioned that.  I wouldn't put KoTOR in as a full rpg, but a good story with numerous rpg trappings. Though your discussion on BG2 get's me the urge to install it(I've had the game for years, shame on me). But I stand by what I say. In the limitations of a crpg you have start and and end. How you get there is up to you. The rest is discovery. If you end up doing an on rails story, then it's not an rpg, but instead a interactive novel. You might as well play Steve Jackson Fighting Fantasy novels and call them rpgs. But this doesn't mean they are not some what enthralling and fun to play. Many of them are.

I'm pretty familiar with the table top saying. Though I prefer Pen(cil) & Paper myself. I have become 20 years familiar with the saying :)

Edit:  ok how about this. Consider me an Elite/Upstream/Hardcore Role Player that finds CRPGS to be casual low games and that i'm being a harcore ass about it :) though a hardcore player that enjoys "low" end crpgs anyways :)

Sounds fine to me.

You really should give Baldur's Gate II a shot.  It hasn't withstood the test of time aesthetically, but I think you would enjoy it.  I made the mistake of playing the original Baldur's Gate after the second game it was a fair bit less enjoyable because of that.

One thing about BG2... the most boring part of the entire game IMO is the beginning.  One you leave that area, you're good to go.



Bitmap Frogs on 23 October 2008

I have the perfect picture for this but I can't find it amongst the six hundred megs of my funny images/gifs directory. And tearing my ass laughing at the pics while I'm looking for it ain't helping neither.





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).

Bitmap Frogs on 23 October 2008

Ah, there it is!





Current-gen game collection uploaded on the profile, full of win and good games; also most of my PC games. Lucasfilm Games/LucasArts 1982-2008 (Requiescat In Pace).

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andersonalex on 23 October 2008

To understand why jrpgs are role playing games, you do not analyze the words "role playing game." There are plenty of words and phrases in languages for which trying to break down the parts doesn't allow you to arrive at their true definition. The real definition comes from how words are used.

The simple answer is, jrpgs are rpgs because over a long period of time, people have consistently said they were. The Final Fantasy series, for example, has been pointed to as a clear and accepted example of a role playing game franchise. It's fair to say that the absolute definition of "rpg" has changed over time as the term has been accepted in reference to many games and the commonalities between those games which seem to distinguish the genre have been accepted as being definitive. It has as such come to be that those traits themselves define the genre even more than the phrase "role playing game" itself. Obviously "playing a role" is one aspect that's common to rpgs, but it isn't the only one, and to satisfy most people's definition of a role playing game, you generally have to match more than that.



vlad321 on 24 October 2008
Bitmap Frogs said:

Ah, there it is!

 

LOL. Good one.



Tag(thx fkusumot) - "Yet again I completely fail to see your point..."

HD vs Wii, PC vs HD: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=93374

Why Regenerating Health is a crap game mechanic: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=3986420

gamrReview's broken review scores: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=4170835