RPGs - East Versus West?

Thanks to GameSpy for their Spy/Counterspy column discussing the relative advantages and disadvantages of Western and Japanese RPGs. According to GameSpy editor Benjamin Turner's less-enthusiastic view of Japanese RPGs: "I want to create my own characters instead of playing someone else's; I want to explore a world at my own pace rather than being shuffled through a pre-planned, linear progression. Most of all, I want to be able to replay a favorite game and have a very different experience." However, editor Christian Nutt's rebuttal suggests: "While there are entertaining elements to Western RPGs... the way that all of the design elements of a great Japanese RPG work in concert to offer a truly engaging experience as a whole is what really excites me the most."

Comments

Not East vs. West, but Prolific vs. Sporadic

[Txiasaeia]

It's really, really, REALLY hard to fault Japanese RPGs -- if you don't like one, there's about fifty million others to try. Xenosaga, .hack, the FF series, Chrono series, etc. etc. There's tonnes of good ones out there, with varying themes and settings.

As for western RPGs... well, we're kinda limited in our choices. Want to play in a fantasy setting? Great! Pick from five (in the last couple of years). Steampunk? One choice. Sci-fi? Sorry, out of luck.

Re:Not East vs. West, but Prolific vs. Sporadic

[illuvata]

yea but while there are loads of JRPGs out there, there sort of the same. i mean, i when i play the newest FF, i usually know at least 80% of the plot in advance, and its not the type of game i want to play twice.
actually, with the newest FF, i thought it was more of an interactive movie, with the game parts being anoying sequences you had to play to get on with the story

This is journalism?

[Rayonic]

The first guy had extensive experience with both JRPG and CRPG games. He stated his positive and negative experiences with JRPGs, then explained why he later learned to love CRPGs more.

The second guy admitted that he had no experience with CRPGs: "I'll admit that my experience with Western RPGs is comparatively limited." What the hell? Then he launches into a mushy rant where he describes the strong points of some JRPGs he has played, and hardly even mentions how CRPGs compare in those areas. Well, I guess he can't, since he hasn't played any. (He seems to admit that he fooled around with KOTOR a bit, or maybe just watched it.)

The very idea that a "Western" RPG can't have an engaging storyline is complete bollocks. Certainly Morrowind doesn't have the most engaging plot, but what about Planescape Torment or Fallout?

Maybe some people just can't get immersed in a good storyline if they have to make decisions in it (i.e. Role-Play). That indicates a certain lack of imagination, IMHO.

Interactive movies

[nsideops]

As someone else said, to many rpgs are nothing more than interactive movies to me, and most seem to have very little on the interactive side. I've always been one of those few final fantasy haters and with each release my hate for them just seemed to get worse. 20mins of movie, 5mins of game play. This does not appeal to me at all. To many action games are taking this idea way to far as well (Metal Gear Solid 2), but thats another story. When I play a game, I want to play a game, not watch a movie. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem with well placed video sequences to progress the story or even for cool "WOW, LOOK AT THAT" scense, but when the majority of the game revolves around this, I just can't handle it. I guess the first rpg that really got me interested was Morrowind. The sheer freedom was amazing. Right now I'm addicted to Knights of the Old Republic. Great game, and even though there is quite a bit of video, it's short, revolves directly around the choices you have made and don't seem to try to take over the game. The final fantasy series and similar games just seem to be pretty video first, every thing else last, at least in for me. Release it as a movie and I'll watch, but surounded in short, random game elements, I'm not interested.

It's not even Point/Counterpoint

[Nakanai_de]

The first guy had extensive experience with both JRPG and CRPG games. He stated his positive and negative experiences with JRPGs, then explained why he later learned to love CRPGs more.

Well, yes, but one of his negative points WRT JRPGs was bad translation. Negative for FFVII: the translation was nearly sub-literate. Positive for Wizardry VII: wonderfully written text. The translation is hardly the fault of the game. In fact, a bad translation can completely ruin the main reason to play JRPGs- the storyline.

That's just a sidenote, though. The main beef I have w/ this article is that it's not a point/counterpoint. The second person is supposed to take the arguments of the first and refute them. (For example, take the point about lack of character customization in JRPGs and trot out Final Fantasy Tactics as a counterexample. Or counter the claim of Most of all, I want to be able to replay a favorite game and have a very different experience. with the example of Seiken Densetsu 3.

As it is, this article suffers from the main problem of point/counterpoint as it is written by amateurs, namely that the two sides talk right past each other so it's less like a debate and more like two, unconnected rants. I definitely think that the difference between Japanese and Western RPG design makes an interesting topic of discussion, but I imagine there will be more insightful comments here on /. (like this one, if you're reading, moderators :) ) than there were in this drivel.

Re:I cannot STAND western RPG's.

[Mike Hawk]

Yeah, choosing a ROLE to PLAY in a GAME sucks. Who wants to PLAY a ROLE in a GAME when the developer can choose for you. I'd rather watch a movie about myself too.

How can you even compare the two types?

[lidocaineus]

Seriously; I love well told stories and interesting plot developments, hence, I love the good JRPGs, such as Phantasy Star 1/2/4, Chrono Trigger, PANZER DRAGOON SAGA, and some FF games.

When I want a very customizable dungeon crawl/quest-oriented game, CRPGs fit the bill. The shortcomings with these are the exact opposite of JRPGs; weak stories most of the time (there are some notable exceptions such as Fallout and Planescape: Torment) and more of an emphasis on character stats.

It really has to do with the roots of the genre; CRPGs borrow heavily from traditional role playing and dice throwing, while JRPGs.. well, don't. Honestly, to me, they're practically separate genres. It's like comparing sports games and sport simulation games.

The only real problem I have with CRPGs is the idiotic tendency to lean towards fantasy settings, most of which I consider incredibly boring. Give me a nice sci-fi or original setting. How many times do I need to hear pseudo-british like accents and cast fireballs? Heaven forbid someone come up with a cool idea transplanted into a modern day setting!,

Re:depends

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Games like Balder's gate or Morrowind are absurdly long, 60 hours plus

Somebody hasn't played Dragon Warrior VII - I'm 60 hours in and I still have at least 10 hours before I can beat it. DWVII also features interesting character customization abilities - not too different than FFV or FFT - though it would easily take 200+ hours to master all the classes for everyone.

For comparison, I beat morrowind in around 40 hours and baldur's gate in 60 hours (and I did every single quest in baldur's gate too).

Final Fantasy tactics rocks too - i like games that make me think and the controversial (if your catholic) plot was a nice change from "kill the foozle" (well, you do kill a foozle in FFT, but anyway). We need more like it.

Re:I cannot STAND western RPG's.

[Daetrin]

Of course it's impossible to achieve a completely dynamic plot in a CRPG; however, there's a rich gradient between the poles of static and dynamic plotlines. Just within this /. topic, we're seeing people arguing the merits of games which fall all over the place within that gradient.

I don't have a problem with more interactive games being developed, as long as there are still "normal" CRPGs around. In effect, i'll agree with your original statement if by "games should be striving for fully interactive plotlines" you mean some games, and by some games, you mean some RPGs.

Framing your position as being "interested in elaborate storylines" is a little misleading, because I think gamers on both sides of this debate want elaborate storylines. The difference is the desired level of interactivity. And to suggest that a storyline's quality declines as interactivity rises, well... I can't agree. I think there are ways to approach this problem which haven't been explored yet. Ion Austin and Rockstar North are definitely heading in the right direction.

I wouldn't really consider it misleading because i see the detail of the storyline and the amound of interactivity with the storyline as being almost diametrically opposed.

Without the presence of a human GM to decide what effect the actions of the player have, the developers have three options that i can see, they can limit the actions the player can take, they can limit the detail of the plot so that the player's actions can be incorporated into it, or they can allow nonsensical behavior to occur.

This problem is further compounded of course because the developer has to make these decisions in advance, and predict what important decisions the player will want to make and choose to allow for them or not, and if allowed, spend time detailing what happens as a results of those actions.

To take a stereotypical example, the king summons the player's party to his castle and tells them a great evil is upon the land, yadda yadda. The players decide the king is a bore, and attack him and kill him. If that's allowed, the developer then has to have a whole plot set out around the player being evil and what happens in that case. Since the divergence happend right at the begining, in effect two entire plots have to be constructed in the same amount of time as was original allocated for one plot, and thus we'd expect each plot to have about half the detail that the original would have had.

That's obviously an exagerated case, but i believe that the same is true in microcosm. The more possibilities the designers have to consider the less detailed the resulting plot will be, due to both time and resource constraints, and due to preventing conflicts from appearing if the player makes certain choices.

We've already seen this issue rear it's head in a limited form with the transition from catridge based games to cd-based games, and the coinciding inclusion of pre-rendered cutscenes. For example, Final Fantasy 5, FF6, and Chrono Trigger all had ways in which the ending of the game could be altered. FF 7 and 8 and Xenogears did not. Since i wasn't on the development team i can't say for sure why that was the case, but i can make a pretty good guess.

Chrono Trigger had more than 12 endings (exact number depends on how you count) which the later games to do similarly would have required 12 different cutscenes, something that would have been prohibitively expensive both in money/rendering time and in disk space. (I believe that for the PSX remake they left all the endings in rather than face a fan-revolt, but only two got the pre-rendered cutscene treatment.)

FF5 and 6 varied the ending based on which characters were killed in the final battle, or which characters were never rescued respectively. This was acomplished both by playing alternate scenes in some areas, and by swaping out which chracter sprites were playing in others (a little of this was done in Chrono Trigger as well, especially as r