Most videogames are about escapism, getting into somebody else’s skin for a bit. While almost every game has you playing a role of some sort, RPGs have always been the genre for the story-loving gamer. RPGs come in two overarching flavors: Western and Japanese. While they both share a general genre, you’d be wrong in assuming that they’re similar. Some message boards are filled with threads over which type of RPG is superior, but I think that’s the wrong tree to be barking up. There’s no real point comparing vanilla and chocolate, after all.

This is one of the less confrontational pictures I could find when I searched "Western and Japanese RPGs." As you might notice in this image, there are some strong stylistic differences between the two sides of the genre.

What are the strengths of the two types of RPG? How do the two styles complement each other?

You could say that Japanese RPGs are like rollercoasters; there are ups and downs, twists and turns, but you’re strapped in for the ride. Generally, you (as the player) don’t drive the story forward. Instead, you control a character in-between story sections and watch the plot unfold. In Final Fantasy X/Final Fantasy 7, you control Tidus/Cloud (both blond haired young men with very impractical weapons) in combat and in the overworld, but when dialogue starts happening, the game takes the reigns from you.

Most of FFX's story comes through in cutscenes.

Battle is turned based, instead of the ATB system other FF games used.

There may be the occasional choice to make, but the story is going to the same place no matter what. When the player can’t influence the story, the writers can set up character’s stories without having to worry if the side characters should be reacting differently to the world and the main character. The writers and designers can also engineer a different sort of attachment that somebody playing Fallout might feel for their character, much like the attachment you might feel to a book or movie character.

People still have serious feelings about Aerith Gainsborough, the kindest character in FF7. The remake is going to stir up some tears for people. — People still have serious feelings about Aerith Gainsborough, the kindest character in *FF7.* The remake is going to stir up some tears for people.

The more focused nature of JRPGs also lead them towards longer stories, due to the absence of a lot of side content. This means that stories can develop in a slower way, often with better pacing and tone. A good portion of this is probably due to cultural differences, but JRPGs are also more willing to get a little weird. In Persona 3/Persona 4 you play as a high school student by day, answering test questions and hanging out with your friends, but by night you enter an alternate reality (through your high-school in 3 or a TV in 4) and fight evil spirits.

Here's normal school life.

And here's fighting demons by night. In the same school.

The focus on mobile gaming in the Japanese gaming market has also created some really interesting mechanics that you don’t see anywhere else. In The World Ends With You (an RPG for the DS), you fight enemies by drawing shapes on the bottom screen of the DS rather than hitting buttons, for instance. You start to think of combat in a very different way, more related to your own reflexes and the patterns of your attacks rather than just swinging a sword.

If JRPGs are like riding a rollercoaster, Western RPGs are like driving an ATV; you can stick to the trail, but you can also try to drive over that mountain over yonder. One of the principal strengths of the Western RPG is the level of player interaction with the story. You can see from Dungeons and Dragons to Baldur’s Gate to Fable that your choices move the story forward.

Each dialogue choice here could learn a different outcome and change the story moving forward.

Gameplay and story aren’t kept as separate parts of the game in WRPGs. You choose what your character says, does, how they act, and what kind of person they are and the story reacts to your choices. Many of them are less linear and offer more freedom in terms of movement. In Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, you can flit from town to town, solving side quests and leveling up, discovering side content. Many western RPGs never force you down their story’s path; less than 30% of people on Steam have completed Skyrim’s Main Quest. These games generally have more content to explore and more replay value compared to JRPGs because seeing everything in one go is very hard, or even impossible due to the game locking you out of some content due to a choice you made.

So many places to go and not progress in the main quest.

Western developed RPGS are also free to explore more niche sides of the genre, such as Real Time Strategy RPGs like MechCommander. You also have games like the Mass Effect and S.T.A.L.K.E.R series, which both toe the line between shooters and RPGs. The strong PC support of western developers for RPGs also means that WRPGs are more likely to foster a strong modding community which can extend the lifetime of a game by years. Hell, people are still making mods for System Shock (which came out in 22 years ago!).

You can see how the two kinds of RPG are two sides of the same coin. Both kinds are about immersing yourself in a fantasy (pleasant or not) and both usually involve some degree of stats, micromanaging equipment, or leveling up. They take such complementary directions that you have to wonder if developers on one side saw what the other was doing and though, “Hey, let’s fill in the gaps!” Sometimes you even get games like Dark Souls, a very western style Japanese-developed RPG. It’s kind of like when chocolate met peanut butter, except in the case of the Souls series, chocolate and peanut butter teamed up to kick the crap out of you.

Hope you enjoyed this Topic Post! Stick around for a new Let’s Look At coming soon.

Please share, leave feedback, and follow TheMagnusKit on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks everybody.