Just wondering something, I go looking for some JRPG news I see a ton of WRPG fans just bashing JRPGs non-stop for several pages in a search, I try to read some gamefaq post for some JRPGs I seen a few WRPG fans popping in and screaming “pedo”, made the same old stale jabs of “kids killing god” and just being jerks, I am afraid of looking up JRPGs on youtube because I know it will come back nothing but WRPGs and their fans ether forcing Skyrim/Morrowind/Deus Ex down my throat but constantly having two hour video “essays” about how anime fans ruined games.

I'm just angry, tired and frustrated because I normally just leave people to play genres I don't like (like First Person shooters, GTA, MMORPG, so on) alone but it seems like WRPG fans just go out of their way to poke, prod and bother JRPG fans and act like the year is 1997, and pretend they are actual Vikings on their keyboards.

I use to try to enjoy WRPGs, I really did, I had Skyrim, Dragon Age, KOA, Marrowind, and Fallout 2 and 3 only to find I just disliked them, and with time I hate the gameplay utterly. I spend years trying to get into them before just giving up, even when I had people told me “I was playing them wrong, you just got to grind the right way some more”.

I just gave up on them, admitting they are not for me.

I just want to know why do WRPG fans are so insanely hostel toward JRPG fans in this day and age.

A rocket propelled grenade by any other name is still a shaped charge armor piercing projectile for killing tanks. (To use an obscure reference from another world of enthusiasts using the abbreviation RPG that also has its ridiculous“pissing contests ”)

I often see the same in reverse, the simple truth is people are assholes and the internet makes it worse. As Bravo said it's people having pissing contests, doesn't matter if it's Football(soccer) vs Football(rugby for pussies) religion vs religion, theism vs atheism, commies vs capitalists, left vs right, traditional values vs open mindedness. Pick your poison and someone will be a dick about it, don't waste your energy on letting it get to you. Especially as even within fandoms (and other “doms” people disagree and bitch moan and attack.

As for the subject at hand, WRPGs are generally superior. FACT, DEAL WITH IT! Hahaha!

Sorry, yeah you know what side of the fence I'm on. I don't mind some JRPGs but most I've found generic and unrelatable, but I'm not a fan of many manga and anime either and most jrpgs I've played have a strong influence of those.

Like what you like and enjoy it, enjoy discussions of it with similarly minded folks and ignore the trolls.

Genejoke wrote:
I often see the same in reverse.

Really, because I find the exact opposite happening with webcomics deconstructing and tearing about JRPGs, the videos mocking their linearity and “anime” esthetics over and over and over. Sorry but once collage humor does a video about the subject it is time to admit that horse is not just dead, but it is glue from all of the beatings.

WRPGs on the other hand, nearly a peep outside of one or two videos on youtube by JRPG reviewers trying to explain they don't like them (and have the comment sections flooded with "but you haven't give them a proper go.)

And I gotten so frustrated and mad I went looking for people bashing WRPGs and the only place I found it was on 4chan, and it was in scattered postings.

Genejoke wrote:

As for the subject at hand, WRPGs are generally superior. FACT, DEAL WITH IT! Hahaha!

I just hate them, and if it means quitting gaming because they are the only thing other gamers are going to fawn over, past, present, and future… Well…

Also I find them so dull, I find there is no story to many of the due to the sandbox nature, it's just a fanfiction generator that the player string the encounters into a “story” in their own head, and if I'm going to do that kind of work I'll just skip gaming and write it out myself.

The large worlds are actually very small if you stop and think about it, as a person should not be able to cross a country so easily.

None of your choices and actions actually mean anything, I mean in Skyrim I was the leaders of the Thieves Guild, the Black Brotherhood, The Companions, Hero of the Civil War, freed the Foresworn leader, a legendary smith that made dragon bone armor and weaponry, a priestess of many deities but in the end nothing changed, nothing.

Combat often combines the worst pieces of turn based combat (the behind the scenes dice rolling, lack of direct control over actions, constant menu juggling) and real time (controls feel like a wet noodle, damage sponge in lieu of change of tactics or variety, bad perspective that feel like the camera is using the wrong lens making judging attacks harder).

And the Grind, me oh my the grind!

People make fun of JRPG for grinding, but ignore WRPG's problem of dozens of grinding treadmills, hell they celebrate it. You have to grind smithing, crafting, speech, magic, enchanting, mining, melee fighting, sword fighting, ax fighting, sneaking, so on and so on completely separately.

I could go into how I dislike the aesthetics of WRPGs, the constant choice of Vertigo comic palette, the fact everyone is very old and extremely butch (even the fair maidens), the lack of using other settings to charge up the genre (maybe a wrpg set in toon town?) but I know I will hear “but JRPG is all anime and kids and nasty colors!” for the eight millionth time.

Genejoke wrote:
Sorry, yeah you know what side of the fence I'm on. I don't mind some JRPGs but most I've found generic and unrelatable, but I'm not a fan of many manga and anime either and most jrpgs I've played have a strong influence of those.

Like what you like and enjoy it, enjoy discussions of it with similarly minded folks and ignore the trolls.

I love anime and manga, and I feel WRPG is soo much more generic. And I cannot connect to WRPG because I find them generic, and I will be honest I spent my entire life surrounded by old grumpy dudes who never smile because my father wanted me to “grow up fast” so seeing teen heroes make friends, have awesome powers and beat the odds is just my cup of tea.

I don't care if people like WRPGs, I just wish they would lay off the freaking hate and acting like WRPGs are the second coming of Crist.

And people ask me why I don't play RPGs in general and WRPGs in particular. Yup, I agree with Furwerk and I've been told I could create the world for a pretty good computer RPG but instead I'll write my silly webcomics instead. Play with dolls and write scripts hardly worth reading especially for people with more important things to do.

And I believe that genejoke was clearly not completely serious and that we all should relax because it's just a game not something important like whether panzers or Allied armor is more cool or the huge question of airplane versus armor model building.

And then there's Star Trek versus Star Wars. Those are important questions demanding attention not role-playing games. Play what you want and disparage the others (I've found anime fans are awfully tolerant of other Fandom whereas other Fandom can be very parochial and dogma versus heresy driven like Medieval Christianity. Now that would be a great RPG. You're either a heretic, a Crusader, and inquisitor or even the Pope trying to either further or crush your heresy)

At any rate, people are assholes and I know there are sites that tear apart WRPGs, except they're not in English. I've LIVED the evolution of anime Fandom from “japcrap ” and weird folks in the basement of Forbidden Planet to full blown anime and Manga. Face it, most folks in the West still don't get it and look down on the whole thing just the same as in model building there are folks who won't touch anything not engineered in Asia and rip on anything not Tamigawa (the gag amalgam name if the two biggest Japanese model companies Tamiya (who can do NO WRONG!) and Hasegawa and the unnamed also rans who just remain so seriously on the fringe)

It's every community and if you're the fan of the undominant unpopular stuff you gotta put up with alot of shit. Just ask yourself if this is really important? I have a bathroom to get fixed and a leaking roof, really – and baseball is starting soon role-playing game formats? Come on let's talk about whether the Mets can win the pennant this year.

I love all the rpgs.

However, I do lean more towards structured stories than open world settings. I like things streamlined. Some side/optional quests are nice, but not when it becomes the whole game.

I played a game for the GameCube back in the day called Last Story, and it was excellent. It was a jrpg but the setting, designs, and acting felt western. It had a strategy-style battle system, no grinding. Kind of short just due to how streamlined it was. Aside from an arena, there weren't really side quests and time wasters.

usedbooks wrote:
I love all the rpgs.

However, I do lean more towards structured stories than open world settings. I like things streamlined. Some side/optional quests are nice, but not when it becomes the whole game.

That is something else I just don't like about WRPGs is the main quest feels more like a very flimsy piece of yarn to tie together other side quest which in turn is just an even flimsier piece of yarn tying those quest together.

bravo1102 wrote:
Play with dolls and write scripts hardly worth reading especially for people with more important things to do.

I just had this mental image of taking some old 1960's GI Joes and 1980's Barbi dolls and just smacking them together in a sandbox over and over while yelling “I'm story telling!”

bravo1102 wrote:
And I believe that genejoke was clearly not completely serious and that we all should relax because it's just a game not something important like whether panzers or Allied armor is more cool or the huge question of airplane versus armor model building.

Honestly I would like to talk about this subject because I find history very interesting, and things like this is an insight into the engineer's thinking and materials they had to work with at the times.

But I know that will lead down to who would win in a fight a skilled Samurai with a spear or dozen of Ashigaru soldiers armed with hinawajuu (matchlock gun), and I say always bet on the foot soldiers.

Now I'm wondering why there is not a WRPG set in fantasy-eqsue WW1? I mean Japan has Valkyrie Chronicles.

bravo1102 wrote:

At any rate, people are assholes and I know there are sites that tear apart WRPGs, except they're not in English. I've LIVED the evolution of anime Fandom from “japcrap ” and weird folks in the basement of Forbidden Planet to full blown anime and Manga. Face it, most folks in the West still don't get it and look down on the whole thing just the same as in model building there are folks who won't touch anything not engineered in Asia and rip on anything not Tamigawa (the gag amalgam name if the two biggest Japanese model companies Tamiya (who can do NO WRONG!) and Hasegawa and the unnamed also rans who just remain so seriously on the fringe)

It's every community and if you're the fan of the undominant unpopular stuff you gotta put up with alot of shit. Just ask yourself if this is really important? I have a bathroom to get fixed and a leaking roof, really – and baseball is starting soon role-playing game formats? Come on let's talk about whether the Mets can win the pennant this year.

Oh yeah, every part of life will always have those kind of people. If there is groups of people who like to go to mini mart bathrooms, you will have a subset that will champion “Standard Stations were the best, take that 76ers!”

And yeah, rpg formats takes backseat to more important things in life.

Go Cubs.

I definitely wasn't entirely serious with my comments. I'd hope it's easy to tell which were which.

Furwerk makes some valid points about some wrpgs, although I'm not sure about the grinding part… well in some cases. I've never found an elder scrolls game grindy, I don't count the online one as nearly all online rpgs are grindfests. Grinding pisses me off in general to be fair and I've played a couple of jrpgs guilty of it and plenty that aren't. Ultimately a good game is a good game is a good game and then preference comes into play. I generally prefer story driven games but a good open world can also be a big draw.

I could go into how I dislike the aesthetics of WRPGs, the constant choice of Vertigo comic palette, the fact everyone is very old and extremely butch (even the fair maidens), the lack of using other settings to charge up the genre (maybe a wrpg set in toon town?) but I know I will hear “but JRPG is all anime and kids and nasty colors!” for the eight millionth time.

This pretty much falls into the preference thing. I often like the drab and more realistic colour palettes, but it very much depends on the tone the game is going for, regardless if wrph or jrpg. Ni No kuni would have been rubbish if it had skyrimesque visuals. The Fallout games wouldn't have worked half as well if they looked like anime, but Borderlands (even though it's more of a shooter) was brought to life by the cartoony visuals.

Really we should be grateful that both styles of rpg exist and hope the trend for all games to do everything and become too alike doesn't continue.

Genejoke wrote:
I definitely wasn't entirely serious with my comments. I'd hope it's easy to tell which were which.

Furwerk makes some valid points about some wrpgs, although I'm not sure about the grinding part… well in some cases. I've never found an elder scrolls game grindy, I don't count the online one as nearly all online rpgs are grindfests. Grinding pisses me off in general to be fair and I've played a couple of jrpgs guilty of it and plenty that aren't. Ultimately a good game is a good game is a good game and then preference comes into play. I generally prefer story driven games but a good open world can also be a big draw.

Sorry to be thin skinned.

And yeah some JRPGs are bad with grinding (looking at you Sailor Moon Another story) but I think it's because I'm used to and prefer that. Kind like how some people can deal with Sierra Online moon logic puzzles and other wonder what kind of head trauma lead them to figure out the cat/mustache puzzle.

Genejoke wrote:

This pretty much falls into the preference thing. I often like the drab and more realistic colour palettes, but it very much depends on the tone the game is going for, regardless if wrph or jrpg. Ni No kuni would have been rubbish if it had skyrimesque visuals. The Fallout games wouldn't have worked half as well if they looked like anime, but Borderlands (even though it's more of a shooter) was brought to life by the cartoony visuals.

Really we should be grateful that both styles of rpg exist and hope the trend for all games to do everything and become too alike doesn't continue.

Sorry to get thinskinned there.

Anyway about aesthetics I would love if games did more playing around with styles, I would love to see something like a Roger Rabbit/Cool World style world with more realistic humans with fully cel shaded cartoon characters.

And I do want to point out a good use of a dark color palette is Twisted Metal Black and Soul Reaver, used to full effect of griminess with the art style. There is something special about PS1/2 dark, I can't put my finger on it but it feel cold and strange, but interesting and mysterious.

I loved it.

And in the same breath a bad used of a bright color palette is Twisted Metal 4….

I used to LOVE computer game RPGS. My faves were the chibi style anime ones you got on the Sega Megadrive (Genesis to the USA).
My faves were: Landstalker, and Shining Force 2 and 3. There were a few others like Phantasy Star, but that didn't grab me as much.

Anyway, they were so enjoyable. The stories were very cliche, always had the same sots of elements, the whole world and plot was very tight: you couldn't change the story at all really, it would always end the same but you could get there in different ways depending on your fighting skills.
But I LOVED that about them! Especially the tight stylised art style.

I played some western stuff too but it wasn't as well crafted, things were a bit looser, and the art style went too much for a kind of drab, shoddy realism that wasn't at all as fun as the bright, gorgeous looking anime cartoony looks of JRPGS

So yeah, I loved those back in the day. Do they still make them? I've tried some retro style ones on my phone but they're just not as good anymore… The stories are too loose and big. Just fan made stuff… It doesn't have the contained, well crafted feel of the originals.

It's been quite a while since I have read any gaming forums, so I was not aware of this.

Many JRPGs are classics, and influence games from both Japan and the West to this day. I love many of the Squaresoft games, but I also really enjoyed playing Skyrim and Mass Effect. In general, if the story and gameplay are good, and the game is immersive, I don't care who makes it. Like many things I do, I play these games to escape real life :p

As someone who does not have great “game” reflexes, I do like the turn-based style of some of the older JRPGs, so that I can think ahead about what I want to do.

I've spend a lot of time grinding for XP in Skyrim and also grinding to get the Golden Chocobo in FF7. I did all the Skyrim quests too, and after finishing the main storyline, I kinda just stopped after joining all the guilds I could, etc. So many sidequests. But I thought it was very immersive and well-done on a world-building scale, and I liked there were different skills to develop.

L.C.Stein wrote:
Mass Effect.

I liked that series too. It felt more like an interactive movie to me though… even though I suppose the mechanics were basically exactly the same as any traditional old fashioned JRPG… The 3D stuff and the perspective makes that style of game more immersive of course.

Aesthetics matter more than people think.