Favorite RPG/JRPG?

[SGS Man]

@Forli What even is the definition of RPG anymore?

 

If it means stats, levels, and gear, then most, if not all games in this thread, fall into this category.

If it means role-playing (Role-Playing Game, who knew?) as anyone you want, then JRPGs often utterly fail in this category (and this comes from a guy who has played dozens of them), while games like Skyrim fit perfectly.

If it means role-playing as a specific person, the best of both genres do a decent job.

 

And if any criticism has to be passed about the thread's title, it's that JRPGs get a category but all ARPGs and CRPGs are lumped into RPGs instead.

Seriously, your claim about giving WRPGs a "fair chance” indicates you might have become the thing you hated...

Edited January 28, 2018 by SGS Man

[NuMetalManiak]

2 hours ago, Bauul said:

That's exactly right, more or less (I'm thinking of the original trilogy here, not the recent not-so-good open-world release). Compared to sprawling JRPGs, it's a much more focused and cinematic experience. All dramatic camera angles, motion capture performances and explosions. It's basically a space opera in the same vein as Star Wars, so if you enjoyed that, you'd enjoy Mass Effect.

 

The stats aren't crazy deep and the plots aren't crazy complex and the levels aren't crazy big, but the characters are brilliantly written, the acting is generally great, the animation is solid, and the music is excellent. And shooting stuff never gets old. There are enough big choices to really make the story feel yours (if you ignore the slightly dodgy ending) and it's no surprise that almost everyone who played it 10 years ago can still easily reel off the names of the species and characters you meet. They're just very, very well written.

 

Plus you get to punch reporters who ask too many questions.

 

All I did was look at some screenshots, I guess it might be so.

58 minutes ago, Forli said:

So there's morons constantly claiming that all jrpgs are trash without having played a single one and I'm supposed to shut up, the title of this very thread implies that jrpgs are not real rpgs and nobody even points it out, but when I talk shit about wrpgs after giving them a fair chance that's something that can't be tolerated?

I hate the kinds of people who hate something without trying it.

 

Where in the title (or the op) does it say that jrpgs aren't real rpgs?

 

And maybe you didn't play the right wrpgs. Who knows. I don't.

[Phobus]

I want to reply here, as I've played a few now, but my answer may be subject to change as I'm yet to play Phantasy Star 3 or 4, any of the Shining Force or Deus Ex games or any of the RPGs on the SNES Classic Mini. I'm not really a fan of the genre either, so it really is from limited experience that I say my favourite western RPG is Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance... Specifically 2-player. If that's not actually an RPG, then it's Sacred: Gold Edition. Particularly the world of the first game, but playing with the Demoness added in the Underworld expansion. The game stands up to replays, has a lot to explore and felt like a good story unfolding. Underworld was a lot weaker, but I think that may have been due to me raising the difficulty for it after coasting through the last portion of the main game. The Mass Effect Trilogy games are nice to have been through once or twice each, but perhaps are too easy to compare to their contemporary action games and be found wanting. The first one was much more replayable than the sequels, too.

 

As for JRPGs... I think the one I enjoyed the most may actually be Pokémon: Fire Red, for hitting my nostalgia whilst being a better game. The first two Phantasy Star games are contending, but both have difficulty cliffs to scale just to get started and made me resort to walk throughs due to the sheer length and maziness. I look forward to playing 3 and 4 all the same, though.

[Bauul]

1 hour ago, Forli said:

And even if I have not played others I've seen videos and reviews of them, and they ALL really seem to be the exact same generic, uninspired boring piece of trash.

In fairness, the labels of JRPG and WRPG are completely useless anyway.  They are so broad they mean literally nothing.

 

For example, this is a JRPG:

 

This is also a JRPG:

 

What do they have in common, other than being made in Japan, and having player stats?  Absolutely nothing at all.

 

WRPGS are no different.

 

This is a WRPG:

 

This is also a WRPG:

 

What do they have in common, other than being made in the West, and having player stats?  Absolutely nothing at all.

 

It's pretty preposterous to compare them as genres when they share so little.  

[Gez]

I've played Arx Fatalis, Baldur's Gate, Deus Ex, Dragon Age: Origins, ES: Arena, ES: Daggerfall, ES: Morrowind, ES: Oblivion, ES: Skyrim, Jade Kingdom, Knights of the Old Republic, KOTOR 2, Neverwinter Nights, System Shock 2, Ultima 7: The Black Gate, Ultima 7: The Serpent Isle, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld II. Honestly I have liked all of them. My historical favorites (the games I played the most) would be Daggerfall, Ultima Underworld II, and Morrowind; though they're not necessarily games I'd want to play again.

[jazzmaster9]

19 hours ago, Forli said:

I played those games to give the genre a try, I selected them specifically because they were the most popular and aclaimed ones and they were constantly praised as the better examples of what wrpgs are like.

 

Lol, that's like playing Call of Duty: Advance Warfare or Battlefield 1 and claming thats what all FPS are because reviewers/ Casual gamers claimed they were good.

Try again.

19 hours ago, Forli said:

And even if I have not played others I've seen videos and reviews of them, and they ALL really seem to be the exact same generic, uninspired boring piece of trash.

 

Again play Fallout 1, Fallout 2 and Ultima and prepared to be proven VERY wrong. Heck play System Shock 2 and Lisa.

 

19 hours ago, Forli said:

I played those games to give the genre a try, I selected them specifically because they were the most popular and aclaimed ones and they were constantly praised as the better examples of what wrpgs are like.

And even if I have not played others I've seen videos and reviews of them, and they ALL really seem to be the exact same generic, uninspired boring piece of trash.

So there's morons constantly claiming that all jrpgs are trash without having played a single one and I'm supposed to shut up, the title of this very thread implies that jrpgs are not real rpgs and nobody even points it out, but when I talk shit about wrpgs after giving them a fair chance that's something that can't be tolerated?

Playing watered down versions of WRPGs is NOT giving the a fair chance.

 

Again play Good games and not Hyped Games.

 

Don't confuse hype with Quality.

Edited January 29, 2018 by jazzmaster9

[Arctangent]

1 hour ago, jazzmaster9 said:

Again play Good games and not Hyped Games.

I feel like you're doing something just as terrible as Forli is, just in a different way.

[jazzmaster9]

6 hours ago, Arctangent said:

I feel like you're doing something just as terrible as Forli is, just in a different way.

Yeah Scratch that part. Just got carried away. But my point still stands. Hyped =/= Best Example of a Genre.

[A Nobody]

On Thursday, January 25, 2018 at 0:46 AM, Chewyninja69 said:

I don't have a GBA unfortunately. Guess I can check it out on Youtube, though.

Download a emulator.

[A Nobody]

My favorite JRPGs are Crystalis and Paper Mario The-Thousand-Year-Door. By the way, never look at reviews to get what you want. You should also play un-popular or obscure JRPGs rather than checking the popular ones. :)

[Soundblock]

17 hours ago, Bauul said:

In fairness, the labels of JRPG and WRPG are completely useless anyway.  They are so broad they mean literally nothing.

 

Their origins were more categorical and easier to tell apart, but yeah, both camps treat any subject matter these days. Even now, when the themes treated overlap completely, you can still notice a very distinct way in how they treat story, characters, advancement an dialogue. I like JRPGs best when they are creepy, scary and inventive in systems, not so much when they're just cute and wishy-washy of dialogue. I like WRPGS best when they are doom, gloom & hand crafted, not so much when they are numeric, traditional and realistically rendered.

[yakfak]

i understand forli's frustration because all the recent triple AAA rpgs from this side of the world are casual and repetitive collections of fetch quests which "reward" you only in developing the story of a bunch of incredibly irritating companion characters

 

elex is the hardcore version of that, with some more thought-out quests with proper consequences and aftershocks for the choices you make but you still spend the game exploring a ludicrously oversized world repeatedly doing the same few attacks and seeing the same few items. plus the english translation of the dialogue is really really bad

 

skyrim is so gorgeous in mood but so empty in practice I almost want to say it's in a different genre entirely

 

the problem with modern rpgs is that they build a game world and then force-feed it to you through endless conversations and its usually not worth it. morrowind's lore was worth it, planescape torment's lore was worth it but those are frankly stand-out games especially compared to fallout 3

 

play more ultima tbh. ultima 4 gives purpose to the repetition, ultima 5 wakes up the mind. ultima 8 is horribly maligned but at least it makes you do a whole bunch of unsavory stuff instead of giving you the whole "oh mighty avatar your mere presence shines golden light on my soul" routine which built up through the ultima 7 games to boiling point

 

(more edits: the first few ultimas were made by a single person and the later ones were still made under his close supervision, and then around ultima 8 I think EA started separating him too much from the property, or something. there is certainly a renaissance of single developer rpgs coming out and that's a good and exciting thing. underrail is a cool exploration & survival isometric rpg from recent years more or less made by one dev which i recommend although you aren't going to get EXCITEMENT - what you get is a solid system and a world that one person has put a huge amount of thought into. i feel like an rpg has to be really personal to its main creator or it'll be overly focus grouped and bland.)

Edited January 29, 2018 by yakfak

[Forli]

Alright I'll confess.

 

Seeing people claim that "jrpgs are not real rpgs" and/or "rpgs are supposed to have roleplaying" is near the top of the list of things that pisses me off the most to randomly see on the internet. And when I read the title of this thread that seemed to be making a distinction between rpgs and jrpgs I decided, instead of just saying what was actually bothering me, to write a comment being similarly dismissive of wrpgs, as a way to "get back at them", which now that I think about it was probably not a very smart or mature thing to do.

 

That said I still really don't think wrpgs are the thing for me, and since I already have a huge backlog of games I want to play I'm not exactly in need to find some new stuff.

[[McD] James]

I prefer JRPGs over Western RPGs, but there's definitely quite a bit more actual role-playing in Western RPGs than there is in JRPGs.

[-Votterbin-]

I know this is rather blasphemous, but I'm quite fond of Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. I can see all the problems people have with the newer M&L games, what with the art style and how it kinda holds the player's hand (but that's not a huge problem for me, because I'm terrible at RPGs anyway), but I honestly kind of love Paper Jam.

 

I recently got one of those Sega Genesis plug-and-plagues, so I'm trying to work my way through Phantasy Star II right now, though I doubt I'm gonna complete it.

[Zulk RS]

RPing or not, JRPGs and WRPGs handle story and the game-play differently from eachother.

 

From what I've seen, JRPGs tend to be more story-centric while WRPGs have a lot more in common with Action RPGs (RPGs with action elements in them or vice-versa. See metroid-venias). What I mean by that is:

JRPGs feel rail-roady with a few side-quests thrown in. WRPGs are more centered around an open world with tons of story-lines but the story itself, while still being good, is lacking when compared to JRPG stories. This is probably in-part due to your actions having a greater impact on the story than in a JRPG.

 

I'd these are different flavors of RPGs with their own pros and cons. I generally tend to prefer JRPGs to WRPGs. That being said, the modern game industry seems to have mixed both flavors together and turned everything into an action-rpg.

[A Nobody]

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 2:11 PM, Zulk RS said:

RPing or not, JRPGs and WRPGs handle story and the game-play differently from eachother.

 

From what I've seen, JRPGs tend to be more story-centric while WRPGs have a lot more in common with Action RPGs (RPGs with action elements in them or vice-versa. See metroid-venias). What I mean by that is:

JRPGs feel rail-roady with a few side-quests thrown in. WRPGs are more centered around an open world with tons of story-lines but the story itself, while still being good, is lacking when compared to JRPG stories. This is probably in-part due to your actions having a greater impact on the story than in a JRPG.

 

I'd these are different flavors of RPGs with their own pros and cons. I generally tend to prefer JRPGs to WRPGs. That being said, the modern game industry seems to have mixed both flavors together and turned everything into an action-rpg.

Action JRPGs exist. JRPGs aren't actually linear.

[A Nobody]

I forgot to put the Phantasy Star series as my favorite JRPGs along with the ones I mentioned, silly me. ^^

[LordXel]

I think JRPG wise I've been having fun with FFVII (Playing it for the first time), and I am not big on western RPGs, never suited my fancy or fantasies. 

[Maser]

I have to go with the original Final Fantasy 7 for the PSX.  An honorable mention would be Breath of Fire for the SNES because not only is it a great game, but a great entry level RPG if you're just getting into the genre. 

[Guest DILDOMASTER666]

Tie between Ultima Underworld and Daggerfall

 

By the way, Final Fantasy 7 is garbage

[Barry Burton]

Final Fantasy 3 on the NES. Having played through it completely with a translated ROM, it is my favorite of the FF games. The music is awesome, and the game is reallllly hard.

[Archanhell]

RPGs: Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Elder Scrolls, (The Witcher 3 if I played it), I don't know what else

JRPGs: I have played a lot, but I'm not sure to be honest.

Shin Megami Tensei saga, specifically Nocturne and Persona Saga spinoff.

Alchemist Code, Nier Automata(?), I don't know...

I would have liked to play Phantasy Star but I decided to play Aura Kingdom and Elsword first, they got deleted cus inactivity.

[leodoom85]

My favorites are Dragon Quest 8, a tie between FFX and FFXII and both Parasite Eve (great survival horror RPG games)

[A Nobody]

10 hours ago, Archanhell said:

RPGs: Dark Souls, Dark Souls II, Elder Scrolls, (The Witcher 3 if I played it), I don't know what else

JRPGs: I have played a lot, but I'm not sure to be honest.

Shin Megami Tensei saga, specifically Nocturne and Persona Saga spinoff.

Alchemist Code, Nier Automata(?), I don't know...

I would have liked to play Phantasy Star but I decided to play Aura Kingdom and Elsword first, they got deleted cus inactivity.

Those are JRPGs. ^^

[Avoozl]

I really wish there was a sequel to Jade Empire.

[Catpho]

Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel are modern classics, especially the second one. I urge you people to PLAY IT.

[Archanhell]

7 hours ago, The-Heretic-Assassin said:

Those are JRPGs. ^^

Dark Souls is a JRPG? 

...

...

 

[-Votterbin-]

Right now it's Octopath Traveler on the Switch. I love the art style and the story so far (I've only just gotten past Primrose's and Olberic's first chapters).

[eharper256]

On 7/22/2018 at 7:58 PM, Archanhell said:

Dark Souls is a JRPG?

Yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FromSoftware

Is a Japanese company, and Dark Souls is rather inspired by parts of Wizardry (notably: high difficulty + for some reason there's katanas here) given a a twice over in the Grimdark Setting machine.