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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Have Western RPGs supplanted JRPGs?

Shadow)OS said:
Words Of Wisdom said:
Shadow)OS said:

WRPG's are just Shooter/Action games. The main difference is that your character is nameless and you have a few extra options to tinker with, rather than being named "Master Chief" or "Marcus". Because that way you aren't just controlling some bad ass, YOU ARE THE BAD ASS ZOMG

Fallout? Shooter. Mass Effect? Shooter. Too Human? Shooter.

Why is this a pattern? Lets take a look at where most WRPG's reside: Xbox 360. Hmmmmmmm...

I don't care what culture makes the RPG, as long as they are the turn based or real-time formulas. Since the Japanese tend to to make the more classic RPG's, I buy those games more.


Let me make it clear: I really don't feel comfortable calling most WRPG's an RPG. There are exceptions like Oblivion and Fable that I would gladly call a WRPG, but most "WRPG"'s are just shooter games in my eyes.

This post is ignorant on a massive scale.  The platform on which most WRPGs reside is most definitely the PC.  Claiming that "WRPGs are just Shooter/Action games" makes it clear that you obviously have no idea what you're talking about.

Try playing anything pre-Mass Effect from Bioware, anything by Black Isle or Troika or Obsidian to know what I mean.

 

Neato.

There's something about telling me to ignore all the latest WRPG stuff from the last few years, as well to look at the much older games (from now defunct companies) that strikes me as odd.

Maybe it's all that stuff about WRPG's 'evolving for the better' as everyone is talking about? I'm supposed to disregard the 'evloved' WRPG's and look towards older models as "definitive"?

Perhaps your qualm with what I said might be reasonable had we this discussion 5-7 years ago.

And for the record, Rumble Roses is a Wrestler. And yes, Wrestlers are shitty no matter where you look.

 

More specifically he said you should play PC RPGs, which are significantly better than the console RPGs. Look at The Witcher, Neverwinter Nights 2 and the expansions, Mount & Blade (one of the best combat system ever?), King's Bounty: The legend and Space Rangers 2. You can also check the great Action RPGs from western companies that doon't require any shooting, like Titan Quest+ expansion, Sacred 2 and the Guild Wars franchise. Or the great MMORPGs that have the deepest and most varied gameplay like WoW, Warhammer Online and EVE Online.

Meh, whatever.

 



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To those of you who don't think there are JRPGs in which the choices you make affect the story, take a look at Star Ocean - The Second Story. It has over 80 endings.



Quem disse que a boca é tua?

Qual é, Dadinho...?

Dadinho é o caralho! Meu nome agora é Zé Pequeno!

I'm going to (and only for this one time) agree with shio.

If you want some 'classic' WRPGs, you need a PC. The WRPGs that have been on the 360 and other consoles are far more console-ized and not definitive of the WRPG genre.

For proof, play Kings Bounty: The Legend. It was/is a 2nd rate, low-budget WRPG that wound up being phenomenal.

There are many great WRPGs out there, and I think that, overall, WRPGs are having better sales successes due to the fact that the user base of Western-style games is vastly larger than that of the JRPG genre. Even though JRPGs sell better in the West than WRPGs in the East (although the 360 WRPGs have done great), it's not enough to argue when games like Oblivion, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3 are all million sellers rather easily, and there is yet to be a console JRPG to sell a million - And to my knowledge, there are only a handful million sellers on handhelds (give or take - Final Fantasy remakes, Dragon Quest remakes, and Pokemon sequels/spinoffs for the DS, Monster Hunter and Crisis Core for the PSP)



Back from the dead, I'm afraid.

I don't understand the complaints about the modern WRPGs...

You can hate how they do things, but there are a series of games from Mass Effect to Fallout 3 to Fable 2 etc which do what they set out to do extremely well. They are games that are examples of the craft, and even if you don't like what they are doing you have to respect them for how well they achieve their aims.

If they do things a certain way, sell well but still you don't like the way the genre are heading then you may as well hate yourself. The market decides what games will get made and how they are made and for whom they are made. Opting out or chosing a competitions product is your vote in a capitalist system, if you hate the way other people have voted then there really isn't anything whining is going to solve for you.



Tease.

For me wRPG are declining into some kind of action rpg/fps hybrid.

Kotor was much much better than Mass Effect
Fallout 2 was better than Fallout 3

the only great wRPG in last years was Witcher



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and even if you don't like what they are doing you have to respect them for how well they achieve their aim


??? There are games I like and games I don't like. Older RPGs like Baldur's Gate 2 are some of my all-time favorites, because they were amazing at transporting a story and for their tactical fights, so I think its a bit sad that they are transformed into offline-MMORPGs with grinding and minigames like Fable2. Oblivion was ok, I have yet to try out Fallout3.



personally I think the RPG genre as a whole has been growing but mostly western developed ARPGs in si-fi settings as a few years ago there were virtually none.

I try not to look at RPGs as just Wrpgs and JRPGs as the RPG genre is very diverse and both western and Japanese developers make games in several different RPG sub genres, sure most Japanese RPGs are like FF but games like The world ends with you, fire emblem and Advanced wars etc all came out of japan too and they are very different games, and just because most of the high profile WRPGs of the last couple of years on the consoles at least have contained some shooting elements it doesn't mean they all were games like the Witcher, fable II (yes it's an RPG KylieDog if you think it's not you don't know what an RPG is) Titan Quest, Oblivion, mount & Blade all came out of western developers in recent years.

And on topic yes western developers have been more prolific recently but Japanese developers aren't going anywhere, and both have big games in the next year or too with FF XIII and Diablo III plus many more



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The answer is Temple of Elemental Evil. If you haven't played that, you haven't played a real RPG. Pirate it or buy it cheap, get the Co8 patch (an otherwise excellent game was doomed by a buggy release), and enjoy the deepest turn based combat system ever seen in a video rpg.



IMHO isometric view was the best thing to happen to RPGs. The summoning, which is one of my favorite RPGs employed it and I fell in love with that view. Ultima VII and VIII looked great. I wish there were more like it.