Jp's Thoughts on JRPG Design, Part 0: Where are we, anyway? in Off Topic

ID:67007
 
Apr 30 2009, 5:34 am
Keywords: article
A few months back I started making a few posts on my blog regarding the design of JRPG-type games. Tiberath suggested that they'd be better placed in the BYOND RPG guild. To that end, I intend to make a series of posts, semi-regularly, on various aspects of JRPG design, for your perusal, consideration, and criticism. If you've been reading the posts on my blog regarding this topic, the first few here will be repeats - although rewritten, and hopefully slightly more insightful this time around.

But before I go on with that, we need to lay some ground rules. First and foremost, what is a JRPG?

The acronym stands for Japanese Role Playing Game, but that's obviously a little too specific (Unless I was wanting to address only the Japanese developer population of BYOND). I intend to discuss games in the same vein as Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, and Lufia, not just Japanese games in the same genre. "JRPG-like" would probably be somewhat more accurate, but it's an extra five characters.

Are there any characteristics that JRPGs tend to have in common? I'm glad you asked!

- The games I'll be discussing will mostly have turn-based battle systems of some sort - ranging from Lufia's "pick all of your actions for the next round and then do them" system to FF12's handling of speed differentials (Yes, Final Fantasy 12's battle system is turn-based. It might not look it, but it is).

- They all have a plot you must go through, with battles interspersed. Quests and puzzles should be expected, emphasised to varying degrees. Linearity is not necessarily a property of JRPGs, but almost all of them are very linear (Which is, I think, something that should be different - but that's an article for another time).

- Essentially all JRPGs have a party form around you - you're almost never on your own for more than short sections. There are very good reasons for this that will likely spring up in later articles.

- Characters get stronger over time and learn new skills primarily through winning battles. Generally this takes the form of 'experience points'.

- Battles normally abstract away creatures getting wounded into a system of 'hit points', that are reduced when characters are damaged, and increased when they're healed. When your HP hits zero, you're dead, and have to be revived via more special means (Generally some sort of special item or spell)

- In addition to HP, there are generally a variety of 'status effects' that can be inflicted on creatures, ranging from damage over time ('poison', or the like) to being unable to act ('sleep', 'paralysis'), to attacking your comrades ('confuse'). Some status effects are beneficial ('reflect', 'regen', 'haste'...)

That doesn't mean that if your game exhibits few or even none of the above properties, you can't learn anything from these articles, but you'll probably find them less helpful. Still, a number of the things I'll be discussing are somewhat more universal.

To wrap things up: What properties do you think I've missed? What properties do you think have I listed that you think aren't necessarily the case? What properties do you think are optional? What do you wish was different about JRPGs, on the whole?

Jp out.
#1 Apr 30 2009, 9:44 pm
- Essentially all JRPGs have a party form around you - you're almost never on your own for more than short sections. There are very good reasons for this that will likely spring up in later articles.

That's the one that's got me curious. If you haven't decided on the topic for your next article, I'd very much like to read that one. =)
#2 May 1 2009, 8:36 am
That reminds me of every single RPG I ever played. So I think thats a little insane.
#3 May 1 2009, 7:18 pm
I'll admit that the differences between CRPGs developed in the western style (say, Baldur's Gate 2) and JRPGs are not all that easy to pin down. Probably the most obvious differences tend to be in the depth of character development (Most western CRPGs have much more complex D&D-derived systems) and linearity (Most western CRPGs are slightly less linear).

But that might just be because my primary experience of western CRPGs is BG2, Planescape: Torment, and Morrowind.
#4 May 4 2009, 11:51 am
I don't think levels and HP and status effects are really that specific to JRPGs; they're quite common for RPGs in general, deriving from the RPG genre's parentage from D&D and even older games.

Parties and turn-based battles, though, are definitely more common in JRPGs than in other genres--though I would consider neither to be an absolute requirement, more of a strong guideline.

The linearity issue I also think is endemic to RPGs as a whole, except MMORPGs of course which are really a different animal.
#5 May 4 2009, 6:29 pm
Well even D&D had turns, so that is another one you'd have to rule out. The same could be said for parties. Parties played a huge role in D&D. For one, people usually don't want to play alone, I haven't played in a group smaller then 4.
#6 May 5 2009, 6:47 am
Well D&D itself is more of a pencil-and-paper game, where JRPGs are, I would say, specific to consoles and computers. As far as the evolution of RPGs on computers and consoles in general, it's very safe to say that parties are less common in non-JRPGs.
#7 May 5 2009, 3:52 pm
IMHO, there's very little that differentiates JRPGs and more western-style RPGs. About the only things I can think of at 8:20AM that differentiate the two are that:
- In JRPGs, death tends to be cheaper.
- In JRPGs, magic tends to be far less useful in noncombat situations (That is, all of your magic consists of fireball, unlike in, say, BG2)
- In JRPGs, there's far, far less in the way of noncombat situations.

The list of characteristics was mostly intended as a list of what JRPGs tend to be, rather than what differentiates JRPGs from other genres.
#8 May 5 2009, 4:11 pm
http://www.kingofrpgs.com/About_RPGs.jpeg

Most accurate image when comparing the differences between JRPGs, Western RPGs and D&D.

To be more specific. In a JRPG the storyline is fixed, and I have very little say about what happens in said storyline. Actually, it is rare if I am given any choices at all regarding what happens, and even if I am, they are usually insignificant and make no difference at all.

In a Western RPG, I am usually given much more freedom. There is a storyline that I can follow, and how I go about following it is usuall up to me, if I chose to follow it. I can choose to be good or evil, to kill everyone to be diplomatic, I may choose to side with a different faction and so on. But after all thse choices are made and done, the end result is usually the same, or very similar, the path I took to get there is just different.
#9 May 5 2009, 5:57 pm
Although in JRPGs the story line is often fixed, I'd like to point out that you are given freedoms depending on the game.

The perfect example I can think of is FFVIII, where once all the introduction and tutorial crap is out of the way, you're free to go where you want to and do as you wish without following the story, it means your just limited to your current situation. Where as in FFX, you have pretty much no freedom. Kill monsters, listen to people talk, play some annoying sports game and walk down the clearly labelled path. No running off in some weird direction to talk to some obscure NPC in a hut miles away from the storyline path.
#10 May 5 2009, 6:57 pm
Have you ever played Naruto: Rise of a Ninja or Naruto: The Broken Bond on the XBOX 360? They are adventure/fighter/RPG games and I think they'd offer a solid glimpse into one path future JRPGs may go down.
Imagine an adventure RPG, something sort of like Pokemon with a stronger story, then replace the turn-based system with Street Fighter II style fighter combat. If you can stand anime and have access to an XBOX 360 then I highly recommend giving them a shot. It wouldn't be so useful for your articles themselves, but more as a jumping point into the area of taking elements from one genre into another. You could probably string a whole article out of how traditional JRPG elements can be applied to non-JRPGs and vise-versa after playing it.



What do you wish was different about JRPGs, on the whole?

I wish the combat systems hadn't of stopped evolving in the SNES era. Sure, there were advancements here and there, but where almost every entry in other genres attempts to be ahead of cutting edge we just do the exact same thing with different labels on the actions (no, we're not summoning a giant monster, we're linking a giant monster). Turn-based combat is almost a defining trait of the JRPG, but it's very frustrating that we're just now starting to attempt to bring combat in JRPGs up to speed with the rest.
The standard turn-based system is at the point where I can't finish a typical JRPG simply because I hate watching the five second battle intro, pressing A until the menus go away, waiting 20 seconds for my guys to go through their attack animations, watching the five second victory scene, then going back to the world map to repeat it. Doing that even ten times between minor plot points drives me nuts.
I'd honestly be happier if they'd just ditch junk monsters and xp and make it so I only fight bosses. Fighting against enemies that don't require any sort of strategy to defeat is just boring, and xp just means that you'll arrive at half your boss fights either over-powered to the point where you don't need a strategy or under-powered to the point where no matter how good a tactician you are you will lose.
#11 May 6 2009, 4:24 am
Tiberath wrote:
Although in JRPGs the story line is often fixed, I'd like to point out that you are given freedoms depending on the game.

The perfect example I can think of is FFVIII, where once all the introduction and tutorial crap is out of the way, you're free to go where you want to and do as you wish without following the story, it means your just limited to your current situation. Where as in FFX, you have pretty much no freedom. Kill monsters, listen to people talk, play some annoying sports game and walk down the clearly labelled path. No running off in some weird direction to talk to some obscure NPC in a hut miles away from the storyline path.

But in FF8, all that freedom amounted to nothing basically. It did not progress, or alter the storyline in anyway at all. Most all of the time, the storyline was not even mentioned.
To progress the storyline, I had to follow a set course, and anything I could do just had no effect on that course.

Compared to say... Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magika. In this game, the storyline can clearly be changed by my choices, some choices are fairly significant as well, resulting in several possible endings to the game. To make it even better, how the storyline is presented is up to me.
Say I need an item off of an NPC, I could do a quest for him. Alternatively I could just kill him, steal it off of him, or talk him into giving it to me.
The entire game can be played like this, do a quest, kill everything, sneak around, or talk my way out of it (literally, every combat situation in the game can be avoided by a smooth talker).

These are the sort of choices I am generally never given in JRPGs.