The Katana and the Longsword: Strengths of Japanese and Western RPGs

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.

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.

Pickling Games: Atmosphere

Imagine that you wake up on a train. There are only two other people in your car, both say that they didn’t see you get on. The train stops, and with a heaving sigh and a "Well, end of the line" from one of the other passengers, you enter a dirty train station. High above you, gigantic screens show a man, speaking to all of you. He mentions the" generosity of our benefactors” in allowing you to live in “one of humanity’s finest remaining settlements.”  Meanwhile, you can get a better look at the people inside the station. They are frightened, depressed, and extremely wary of one another. The police force abuses the populace with total for fun, taking some into “interrogation rooms” and beating others for nothing more than not picking up a can. You can see the desperation and anger in the citizens who wait for a single bag of food from an automatic dispenser. Walking out of the train station, you are blinded by the flash from a security drone taking pictures of all the populace. “Welcome to City 17”, the overseer says.

Though over a decade old, the opening of Half-Life 2 still stands as one of the best introductions to a world in games.

This is the opening to Half Life 2, considered one of the best video games ever made. A large part of this is because of the well-constructed and designed world and atmosphere of the game. Atmosphere is the salt of the video game world. It adds flavor to normal games and drastically increases the chance of preservation. Those few games that get it right are guaranteed at least a footnote in the history of Video Games.

So, how do you do atmosphere right?

The Shock games (System Shock/System Shock 2/Bioshock 1, 2, and Infinite) are loved by many players.  Every step you takes, every sound you hear, and every new room you see adds to the atmosphere of the game.

From the very opening of System Shock 2 you know that only a thin metal wall separates you from the gigantic cold void of space.  As you move through the station, enemies’ mumbled cries echo around the empty rooms and the slowly decaying station machinery blips and beeps. The game shows you clear evidence of the people living there: audio diaries, magazines left out on beds, and discarded drink cans in the mess hall. More importantly, the layout of station is designed for people, rather than just a level in a game. All of these little things make the space station of System Shock 2 a haunting and unforgettable environment despite uncomfortable combat, a confusing upgrade system, and wildly unbalanced weapons.

The villain of System Shock, SHODAN, adds a huge amount to the atmosphere  with her almost Max Headroom style messages.

If you are interested in western RPGs in the slightest, chances are you have seen a lot of discussion and comparison between The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. In Morrowind, the minute you step into the playable part of the game (in the hold of a ship), you hear all the sounds you actually might hear on real wooden boat; the creaking of the wood, the water splashing against the hull, and the footsteps of the people upstairs. These little environmental sounds immerse you in the area, to say nothing of the visual aspects of Morrowind.

The first town looks normal, but even that has tons of visual and audio cues that let you know that it’s as close an to a real place as video games can create. The town is built around a few buildings, like the Trade House and the Guard House. There’s a lighthouse near the water and several lower income houses near the less desirable, swampier parts of town. The outdoors themselves are really well put together as well, and give you clues about how this world works. Step a few feet outside any town and the you find mushroom trees, giant bugs that serve as a sort of public transport, and areas ranging from damp swamps to giant mountains hidden in swirling clouds of red ash. Your character reacts to all this like you actually might.  You have to wade through ash storms when you encounter them. They slow your forward movement and force your character to shield their eyes. When you walk under the mushroom trees, you can see various creatures scuttling  underneath and flying gas creatures moving gently from place to place.

The first area you see in a game helps set the tone for the rest of your time int the world, and a lot of games don't use the first area as well as they could.

Skyrim misses a lot of these little touches. The sounds of the world are generic and your character moves the same whether you are trudging through snow or running in a field. The dungeons of Skyrim are almost always designed in the same way. You follow a crescent shaped path only to find a switch at the end which allows you to move from the beginning to the end much quicker. The dungeons are oddly quiet and the exact same color palette and textures do start to wear on you. These details make you feel unconnected from the world and reduce atmospheric quality of the game.

However, there are parts of Skyrim that do further atmosphere, like the lighting and weather systems. In one of the first dungeons, a single fire on top of a pedestal illuminates a broken down chamber, and the enemy slowly crosses the room. The flickering flame and the quality of light make the room seem warm, somehow. You can almost feel the one room of heat in this cold tomb, and feel the trepidation when the enemy emerges from the shadow.

You find the best moments in Skyrim happen when you're exploring. When you trudge up a mountain, over rocks and through a blizzard, only to look up and see an ancient structure slowly appear out of the snow, you get a feeling like you're exploring something that's been untouched for years. You can almost feel the cold that chills your bones and the snow that weighs your feet down. The sense of adventure here is almost unparalleled; what's in that template, just waiting for me to find it?

Discovery is one of the best things in The Elder Scrolls series, and Skyrim definitely has that in spades, but other issues weigh it down when compared with earlier games.

Atmosphere does not always have to be beautiful or inviting; the dark and lonely world of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R games tosses you into a dangerous and tense fight for survival. This series of games takes place in the area around the Chernobyl reactor, famous for its 1986 nuclear disaster. You assumes the role of a stalker, an adventurer who goes into the “Zone” to bring back mysterious artifacts created by disaster.

Most worlds draw you to go outside and adventure, but not the S.T.A.L.K.E.R series. Every time you go out into the Zone you risk getting mauled by psychic dogs, gasmask-wearing snorks, or white eyed blood sucking humanoids that can become invisible at will. The unfriendly humans can be even worse. When walking through “The Zone”, you can hear the haunting cries of the mutated animals and feel a chill run up your spine, you can see the far off light of gunfire and decide whether intervening is smart given your ammunition count and health. You can see the various radioactive anomalies light up as an unfortunate person or animal wanders into them and feel your steps become more cautious to avoid a similar fate. You can feel the cold of the rain and the anticipation for safety upon seeing a friendly group of stalkers around a fire. The world forces you to treat it with caution and respect, making it far more memorable than most video game locales.

If the mutants of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R don't creep you out, I don't want to know you.

Imagine dropping into the cockpit of a space fighter. Immediately, you see the metal bulkhead in front of you that reads “Trevithick Dock.” You select the “launch option”, and your ship is carted through the station until you are on the surface, the black void of space around you. In the distance, you can see millions of stars through the translucent glass of your cockpit. Inside the cockpit, you can see your ships controls, and watch as your avatar responds to your commands, readying to ship for launch. Around you, your audio feed picks up various ships docking and leaving as well as the Dock master’s stern warning not to cause any trouble. You launch your ship off of the landing pad and suddenly, the galaxy is open to you. All you have to do is chose where to start your adventure. This is what atmosphere does. It creates memories that stick with you for far longer than any game can last. 

Welcome to the galaxy, pilot. Where to first?