What [not shmup] game are you playing now?

[drauch]

Ya, I want to try it. I need more post-nuke stories. I just want something more serious. How's the narrative in that regards on Atom? I love Fallout 1, even though it's clearly got humor, but found Fallout 2 to be a bit much.

[Stevens]

Haven't played Fallout so I can't comment, hasn't been as funny as Wasteland 3 though. That said for all its funny moments Wasteland 3 gets dark too.

Narrative is good enough so far. One of the things I love about WL 3 is you get your mission (your real mission) as soon as the game starts. Atom follows the here is your mission and then other shit happens play book. I kind of dig WL 3 lays it all on the table from the get go, wish more RPG's did that.

I know - I have a boner for WL 3.

Anyway it is filling the post-nuke void nicely.

[guigui]

I'd say Atom is less on the funny side than FO2. It definitely has tons of reference to other games and life stuff. I loved reading about that cook running from restaurant to restaurant and firing everyone because food was bad. What was his name again ? Borlon Granney ?

When it comes to good writing, FO New Vegas is very good too.

[Mortificator]

but contemporaneous comparisons don't mean much when each party's at a different level of development.

It does when they stayed at that level.

This argument would make sense if later jrpg's "developed" to be more like Ultima 3, but they didn't. If anything JRPG's got even less complex and more streamlined than games like Dragon Quest 1, to say nothing of Ultima!

There was always this web of styles and influences instead of "JRPGs walk like this and WPRGs walk like this!"

I never said JRPG's weren't influenced by Western RPG's, that's a big point misser. You can be influenced by something and still develop your own style, and I think it's crazy to say that console rpg's (where Japanese rpg's were at home) didn't develop and then maintain a unique (albeit broad) gameplay style and direction compared to (western dominated) pc rpg's. Just being on consoles alone forced a rethinking of how to execute these games.

Megami Tensei also had a Wizardry base, but instead of dumbing it down, added its own layer of complexity which is probably more obtuse than the familiar character classes.

Just wanna address this one, but while the first two SMT's are indeed very obtuse and frustrating compared to the Final Fantasies and Phantasy Stars of the time, from what I know of Wizardry the mechanics in early SMT are nowhere near it, and probably would have come off as forgiving and accessible in comparison at the time. And the series as a whole would become more and more accessible and user friendly with each installment, even as it embraced the image of being the more "hardcore and challenging dungeon crawl" jrpg series with Nocturne and the like.

Saying JRPGs got less complex than Dragon Quest I is even sillier than going GRRRRR over some friendly video game disagreements. Literally every DQ sequel and installment in every major series is more complex than the game with one (immortal!) character, one attack, fighting one enemy at a time.

Japanese RPGs didn't stay at the DQ1 level — they kept leveling-up. Western RPGs hit a slump in the '90s. On one side you had Final Fantasy VI, Shin Megami Tensei II, Phantasy Star: The End of the Millennium, while the big franchises on the other side had... Might and Magic V, recycling the mechanics of MM3, which simplified things compared to MM2? Eye of the Beholder III? Ultima VIII?

WRPGs picked up steam again through casualization and from becoming hybrids with choose-your-own-adventure books. The pausable realtime of the Infinity engine D&Ds is simpler than SSI's turn-based implementation, something Japanese games reached parity with circa Tactics Ogre. Diablo and its ilk were mindless click-athons, a simpler Rogue mixed with Gauntlet.

Not that older WRPGs were necessarily complex. Wizardry is just a greatly dumbed-down copy of AD&D 1st edition. Its mechanics are shallow; the early Wizardry challenge was due to manual mapping and permadeath. I could write a complete walkthrough of Wizardy I and it'd be a single sentence, I would just need to look up the coordinates for the four or so locations in the game that aren't filler.

People sure can develop their own style. The Final Fantasy guys developed their own style. The Megami Tensei guys developed their own style. The Final Fantasy style is not the Megami Tensei style, not remotely. As far as a Japanese uber-style goes... well, I can think of a few things, like boss emphasis. But that's not a genre-defining element, it's seen across a wide variety of genres and sub-genres.

[cave hermit]

I got a Xbox series s after having skipped the xbox one, decided to make good use of the backwards compatibility and play Ninja Gaiden Black.

It is a hard one. Like, my most recent save point spawns in 3 black ninjas attacking me as soon as I load in. Enemies don't obey typical rules of video game enemy common courtesy and happily gang up on you to strike at you from all directions at once. They frequently guard and block your strikes, so you have to get a little cheesy to flinch them long enough to get some strikes in (jumping off their heads or shuriken helps). They have un-telegraphed grab moves too.

That all said, you're a badass ninja with crazy agility, you can wallrun and transition into a leaping slash to immediately decapitate some poor mook, you can slice enemies into the air and izuna drop them after an air combo, you can absorb essence and health pickups as you land from a jump to immediately charge up a strong slash, dodge roll into a light attack combo, run up a wall and land behind your opponent, if you know what you're doing, you can pull off all sorts of stylish crazy agile moves.

The stage design so far seems interesting, the game goes for a sort of mixture of resident evil style puzzles and dark souls style interconnected world design with all sorts of hidden shortcuts and item pickups. It's quite engrossing, and really does give me that feeling I get when playing soulslikes, never feeling safe, always wary of what's around the corner, staying alert for secrets.

I need to finish Bloodborne. Or play Nioh 2. Or Dark Souls 1. or 3. There are too many good games.

For now at least, I'm trying to gradually grind my way through Ninja Gaiden Black. Thank you Mr. Oatmeal Cookie man.

[Vanguard]

Saying JRPGs got less complex than Dragon Quest I is even sillier than going GRRRRR over some friendly video game disagreements. Literally every DQ sequel and installment in every major series is more complex than the game with one (immortal!) character, one attack, fighting one enemy at a time.

Japanese RPGs didn't stay at the DQ1 level — they kept leveling-up. Western RPGs hit a slump in the '90s. On one side you had Final Fantasy VI, Shin Megami Tensei II, Phantasy Star: The End of the Millennium, while the big franchises on the other side had... Might and Magic V, recycling the mechanics of MM3, which simplified things compared to MM2? Eye of the Beholder III? Ultima VIII?

WRPGs picked up steam again through casualization and from becoming hybrids with choose-your-own-adventure books. The pausable realtime of the Infinity engine D&Ds is simpler than SSI's turn-based implementation, something Japanese games reached parity with circa Tactics Ogre. Diablo and its ilk were mindless click-athons, a simpler Rogue mixed with Gauntlet.

Not that older WRPGs were necessarily complex. Wizardry is just a greatly dumbed-down copy of AD&D 1st edition. Its mechanics are shallow; the early Wizardry challenge was due to manual mapping and permadeath. I could write a complete walkthrough of Wizardy I and it'd be a single sentence, I would just need to look up the coordinates for the four or so locations in the game that aren't filler.

People sure can develop their own style. The Final Fantasy guys developed their own style. The Megami Tensei guys developed their own style. The Final Fantasy style is not the Megami Tensei style, not remotely. As far as a Japanese uber-style goes... well, I can think of a few things, like boss emphasis. But that's not a genre-defining element, it's seen across a wide variety of genres and sub-genres.

This.

JRPGs have gradually grown more complex while mostly maintaining their identity. The changes aren't always for the better and most are still ultimately simple games but they definitely didn't stay anywhere near Dragon Quest 1's level. WRPGs turned into something different. In some ways they've improved, their abysmal UIs have thankfully grown better over the years, and in general they're better about explaining what your stats do. Unfortunately where it really counts, most have become parodies of themselves. The dialogue choices that led to wildly different outcomes in games like Fallout 1 are these days only superficially better than Dragon Quest's infamous "but thou must!" choice. Perhaps the best example being the ending to vanilla Fallout 3 where you have to expose yourself to lethal amounts of radiation to win the game, and if you happen to have one of the several radiation-immune allies present you can ask them to do it and they'll just says some shit about how it would be wrong of them to rob you of your destiny. In stuff like Ultima and Morrowind you could pick a fight with essentially anyone at any time and kill them off and the game didn't care how much trouble you got yourself into. That feature is becoming increasingly rare, with most not letting you attack neutral NPCs at all, or you've got Skyrim where you can fight anyone but half the NPCs are immortal and after you beat them unconscious they wake up and act like nothing happened. I don't even think either of those features are particulary great, but I have no idea what the point of playing a WRPG is if you don't have any meaningful choices or freedom anymore.

Most of the challenge in Wizardry comes from RNG russian roulette. You leveled up, good job. Unfortunately you failed the dice roll so your stats went down instead of up. Then you ran into an enemy ninja, and he got a good initiative roll, giving him the first action, and he hit you, and his attack was a crit, and it instantly cut your head off. Game over, roll a new party.

I wish JRPGs had kept Dragon Quest 1's open world design though. That's one thing I always liked better about CRPGs. Going to a high level area and getting owned by something way above me really motivates me to come back stronger for some payback. Whereas in a linear RPG if it's easy and I'm already winning then I don't care about finding a new suit of armor, and if I run into something that's too high level to beat I just get annoyed by forced grinding. Also real time with pause RPG combat is shit, pure shit. Turn based or real time, pick one.

[vol.2]

WRPGs turned into something different.

I still say it's impossible to make this generalization for such a nuanced discussion. It's simply too broad. The term is *very* useful for casually referring to a broader set of CRPG mechanics that is mostly defined by how "not a JRPG" it seems to be, but not great for making sweeping generalizations about the state of CRPGs in all countries that aren't Japan.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

I wish JRPGs had kept Dragon Quest 1's open world design though. That's one thing I always liked better about CRPGs. Going to a high level area and getting owned by something way above me really motivates me to come back stronger for some payback.

Agreed, I can think of several games that allow open-ended exploration, and non-linear completion of areas so you can choose where you go and when, as opposed to being railroaded along from one point to the next with no real opportunities to explore. As good as Final Fantasy X was mechanically, it was an extremely linear game, with only the endgame offering any kind of freedom in exploration whatsoever.

Also real time with pause RPG combat is shit, pure shit. Turn based or real time, pick one.

Yes, stuff where it tries to be real-time but pauses constantly is a bit obnoxious. The early "Tales of" games where every single spell caused a lengthy pause, and you were casting a LOT of spells over the course of fights, were at times a nuisance. The true real time combat games were by far a massive improvement. The earliest example I can think of as far as a real-time RPG goes is Radia Senki for the NES; you do have to pause to use items and spells or reposition/swap tactics, but otherwise it's real-time and a good example of an early foray into the genre. Because combat is more physically oriented, it feels like it has even less pausing than the later Legend of Mana for the SNES had, where optimal tactics on serious enemies often involved locking down enemies with offensive spell spam, recharging MP, then repeating (when you weren't sitting around waiting for physical charge attacks to fill up).

[Squire Grooktook]

Saying JRPGs got less complex than Dragon Quest I is even sillier than going GRRRRR over some friendly video game disagreements. Literally every DQ sequel and installment in every major series is more complex than the game with one (immortal!) character, one attack, fighting one enemy at a time.

Just so that nothing is misunderstood, I'm not going "GRRRR" here! I hope nothing I wrote earlier came off came off as hostile, and I apologize if it did, I'm just pretty OCD and tend to get heated up and write endless paragraphs about stupid shit like this. To quote from a friend "Squire is a designer, so he's allowed to have bad opinions".

Anyway, my main point here is not complexity as the big stylistic point here, but accessibility. Complexity is an afterthought that varies with time. In some ways, later JRPG's are less complex than DQ1: you don't have to take a torch into a cave to see where the fuck you're going in Final Fantasy IV. That alone is one layer of complexity removed from the equation, but all this is again in service to accessibility. Streamlining, cutting the fat for consoles. They grew more complex in ways that wouldn't scare off an 8 year old who just unwrapped the game from under the Christmas Tree.

Yes, they "leveled up". But they leveled up in a different direction. I cannot think of almost any jrpg on a console before or after DQ1 that is anything like Ultima 3 or 4.

People sure can develop their own style. The Final Fantasy guys developed their own style. The Megami Tensei guys developed their own style. The Final Fantasy style is not the Megami Tensei style, not remotely. As far as a Japanese uber-style goes... well, I can think of a few things, like boss emphasis. But that's not a genre-defining element, it's seen across a wide variety of genres and sub-genres.

You can have your own style and have shared stylistic elements common among a genre. It's like bullet hell: Cave, Touhou, and all the other danmaku games all have their own styles, but they also share certain influences and design conceits (most notably a small hitbox).

I don't think there's any singular mechanic shared between all jrpg's, but as a whole the genre to me is defined by a certain emphasis on accessibility that is largely due to being developed on consoles and also marketed towards console audiences (who were usually younger, as was pointed out). I don't think there's any argument that something like this is going to change your genre and the way you think about developing games, the effects on User Interface alone for ditching mouse and keyboard is huge and that's saying something for a genre where gameplay and basic interaction is largely driven by static menus.

I do think there are certain common elements that are less set in stone, though. For example, generally more emphasis on character driven stories (popularized by stuff like Final Fantasy, but not always), generally, more linear (but not always), generally less complex (but not always) in certain areas. etc. These are elements that vary with the style of the particular developer or designer and there are of course always going to be outliers and exceptions, but I think if you step back and look at the most popular and ubiquitous franchises from the "average joe" perspective and don't overthink it, it's easy to see why these stereotypes came to be.

[Vanguard]

I still say it's impossible to make this generalization for such a nuanced discussion. It's simply too broad. The term is *very* useful for casually referring to a broader set of CRPG mechanics that is mostly defined by how "not a JRPG" it seems to be, but not great for making sweeping generalizations about the state of CRPGs in all countries that aren't Japan.

There were a million Ultima games and a million Ultima clones and then they abruptly stopped forever. There were a million Wizardry and Might and Magic games and now western developers will hardly touch the entire dungeon crawler genre. You might see a little bit of those sorts of things from indie developers but that's it. There were 2d games, 3d games, isometric games, turn based games, real time games, real time with pause garbage, and all kinds of other things. Sometime around the year 2000 WRPGs turned into the kind of games modern Bethesda and Bioware make and very little else. All action RPGs where you control one guy. Even when they let you explore freely they'll do whatever they can to stop you from sequence breaking the main quest. Can't miss those voice acted cutscenes, those were expensive. You absolutely will not be allowed to burst into the final boss's room unannounced and kill him before your character even knows who he is. You're lucky if the solution you picked for the last quest has any affect whatsoever on what comes next. But those sorts of things are what made CRPGs stand out. At this point JRPGs may well be the stronger of the two in terms of choices and consequences.

You can speak pretty broadly about this stuff and it'll hold true like 90% of the time.

[Squire Grooktook]

Also:

Also real time with pause RPG combat is shit, pure shit. Turn based or real time, pick one.

Yes, stuff where it tries to be real-time but pauses constantly is a bit obnoxious.

Don't talk shit about Mega Man Battle Network

[Licorice]

I take the J and W quite literally. So yeah, to me, Anachronox is a WRPG and Dark Souls is a JRPG, and IMO this makes perfect sense.

This is where personal takes, mine included, really lose their usefulness.
Calling Dark Souls a JRPG is just no.
no, no, no.

Maybe.

But I think it is useful because clumping Dark Souls with its Japanese forbearers reveals more than the tenuous connection to... which WRPG exactly?

The closest is Ultima Underworld which people claim to have influenced King's Field, which did influence Dark Souls. But one, the claimed connection between Ultima Underworld and King's Field is just that, AFAICT, a claim. Two, the unique influence King's Field had on Dark Souls is limited, the games play very differently afterall. Three, even if King's Field is influenced by Ultima Underworld as some say, that's just one indirect (!) influence of many.

Now, if instead of calling Dark Souls a WRPG, you step up and call it a JARPG, you get a richer idea of where it came from, because you correctly identify it as a successor of Dragon Slayer.

Brave Prove shares staff with Dark Souls, IIRC, which is itself a combination of Terranigma and Story of Thor, both developed by the very same people that developed the first two Ys games.

These same people (Quintet) also made Actraiser 2 (a stylistic relative of Dark Souls, at the least), and Brightis, a remarkably similar 3D action RPG.

Quintet's sister dev studio Produce, also part of Enix's strategy to capture the older RPG audience, made Brain Lord.

Miyazaki cites Ocarina of Time specifically as something he copied when designing Dark Souls, and while it feels wrong (but feelings are often incorrect!) to call Ocarina of Time an RPG of any kind, the Zelda series is definitely rooted in JARPGs, with Zelda 2 being a step towards Xanadu (Dragon Slayer 2) after the first Zelda's attempt at combining and improving on Hydlide and Druaga. Zelda 2 also bears more than a little resemblance to Faxanadu, which is Compile's more action oriented take better suited to the Famicom hardware and audience.

There's a link to Castlevania by way of Xanadu as well, when you consider the MSX Vampire Killer (contemporaneously developed with the Famicom original) was part of Konami's tit for tat competition with Falcom (think Maze of Galious vs Drasle Family (Dragon Slayer 4)).

And this isn't all academic either, as the family resemblance shines through in the way Souls actually plays. Dark Souls animation priority combat is often compared with Castlevania, and the way it's world opens up is not unlike Falcom's 2005 Xanadu Next.

It's all one big Japanese action RPG family you see.

But there's a link to non action JRPGs too.

Before working on Dark Souls, Miyazaki worked on Armored Core. The first Armored Core, along with King's Field, belonged to an early 5th generation trend of making action dungeon crawlers, as opposed to turn based ones.

Part of this same trend is Genki's Kileak series, which was topical competition to Armored Core initially, but unlike AC. stayed truer to its dungeon crawling roots by time of series' swan song Brahma Force. Armored Core instead moved towards a VS fighting focus, something From would hone in later entries and spinoffs and IMO no doubt a strong influence on Souls' own PVP.

Other examples of early 5th gen action dungeon crawlers are Baroque (which competed with and influenced King's Field) and Crime Crackers.

The point is these games are clear offshoots of turn based JPC dungeon crawlers. Crime Crackers has obvious similarity to fellow cute crawler Mado Monogatari, and Kileak and AC to games such as Starfire and Carmine. But this itself is all one big family and includes e.g. Wolf Team's Arcus.

What's more, the line between first person crawler and other kinds of JRPGs is extremely blurry. Arcus 2, for example, isn't even first person and instead adopts an overhead camera that immediately screams JRPG, but Arcus 3 returns to the first person perspective, and more yet, when Arcus 2 was remade in a later collection, it too became first person!

Neither is the addition of action. For example, Wolf Team later went on to develop the Tales of series under a different name, which has action combat, but otherwise follows the Dragon Quest template. Falcom's Brandish uses an overhead camera that rotates, like a first person camera, and over a grid, like a traditional dungeon crawler, but otherwise plays out in real time.

The conclusion here is that JRPGs jump from action to turn based, to first person to overhead, to 3D to 2D but they're all still just JRPGs.

I mentioned Produce's Brain Lord earlier. Produce also developed 7th Saga and Mystic Ark, JRPGs with a lot of "freedom", and which IMO set direct precedents for some of Dark Souls' systems. There's other precedents for "freedom" in JRPGs too, so just because Dark Souls is more "free" doesn't make it any less a JRPG.

So yeah to me Dark Souls is a JARPG, which is a type of JRPG, and I think it is useful to think of it this way. Much more useful, and I dare say correct, than thinking of it as a WRPG, IMO.

[Licorice]

You absolutely will not be allowed to burst into the final boss's room unannounced and kill him before your character even knows who he is. You're lucky if the solution you picked for the last quest has any affect whatsoever on what comes next. But those sorts of things are what made CRPGs stand out

Maybe, but IMO they made them worse games.

For example, Fallout can be beaten by a planned series of riskless mouse presses in 15 minutes. Once you figure it out, that's really the most rational way to play the *game*, everything else amounts to a handicap. So people just stop playing the *game* and play the Fallout *toy* instead.

The 80s dungeon crawlers were more sound as games.

All action RPGs where you control one guy. Even when they let you explore freely they'll do whatever they can to stop you from sequence breaking the main quest. Can't miss those voice acted cutscenes, those were expensive.

I haven't played many WRPGs since being disgusted with the late 90s "classics" (Fallout, Planescape, Arcanum, Morrowind etc.) - I liked BG2 and wanted to try something similar - and then even more disgusted with Dragon Age and the first Witcher in 2008, but the way I'd characterize these is CYOA TV show with skinnerboxing.

[Mischief Maker]

Dark Souls is a clone of the Spanish-developed "Severance: Blade of Darkness."

You guys are really stretching the definition of "RPG" beyond the breaking point.

[Licorice]

Dark Souls is a clone of the Spanish-developed "Severance: Blade of Darkness."

Not sure if trolling but no way. I'd say there's almost no relationship.

If you merely want something that "looks" like Souls before Souls Berserk Guts' Rage on the Dreamcast is your best bet. It predates Severance too.

[Vanguard]

Also:

Don't talk shit about Mega Man Battle Network

Megaman Battle Network isn't really the kind of thing I'm talking about. When you're fighting it's basically all real time action. Pausing for chip selection is no more offensive than pausing to switch weapons in classic Megaman, and the way it stops time for certain abilities isn't even one tenth as bad as what Secret of Mana does. I mean stuff like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. Games where they took rules best suited for turn-based play and then, for reasons that have never been clear to me, awkwardly converted them into real time but still let you pause whenever you want to issue commands. You don't get the effortlessly precise control of a turn-based game, you don't have to think on your feet like in a real time game. It's an ugly hybrid that combines all the weaknesses and none of the strengths of both.

Maybe, but IMO they made them worse games.

For example, Fallout can be beaten by a planned series of riskless mouse presses in 15 minutes. Once you figure it out, that's really the most rational way to play the *game*, everything else amounts to a handicap. So people just stop playing the *game* and play the Fallout *toy* instead.

The 80s dungeon crawlers were more sound as games.

Fallout was never sound as a game in the first place. You're basically always one critical hit away from death. Sometimes you lose initiative and it happens before you even get to play. And when the game isn't cheap shotting you its combat is just damage racing + kiting. No one would care about it today if not for the fact that it gives you tons of freedom to mess things up as much as you want.

Certainly such fast and safe Fallout playthroughs would not be possible if it were less open, but the real problem, if indeed those runs are a problem, is that Fallout is a buggy and unbalanced piece of shit.

[vol.2]

Isn't Dark Souls more of a hack n slash action game than an RPG?

[Sumez]

I mean stuff like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate. Games where they took rules best suited for turn-based play and then, for reasons that have never been clear to me, awkwardly converted them into real time but still let you pause whenever you want to issue commands. You don't get the effortlessly precise control of a turn-based game, you don't have to think on your feet like in a real time game. It's an ugly hybrid that combines all the weaknesses and none of the strengths of both.

Yet another issue with Vagrant Story
Man you guys have now convinced me, it's definitely a WRPG.

[Squire Grooktook]

Dark Souls is a clone of the Spanish-developed "Severance: Blade of Darkness."

No offense MM, but you really need to spend some time sitting down with these games. A lot of quotes from the series I remember from you really gives me a "sat down with it for five minutes to an hour , didn't take a shine to it, and walked away before discovering how it actually works/plays".

[Blinge]

So yeah to me Dark Souls is a JARPG, which is a type of JRPG, and I think it is useful to think of it this way. Much more useful, and I dare say correct, than thinking of it as a WRPG, IMO.

No sane person is calling Souls a WRPG.
And you've already walked back from calling it a JRPG. I tried to read your post but honestly just gave up and skimmed it. Yes, congratulations on knowing the names of many different game series. Does it mean you make a salient point? no.

my god. just say "action RPG " and be done with it.

[Sumez]

Dark Souls is definitely a game.

[BareKnuckleRoo]

Also:

Don't talk shit about Mega Man Battle Network

Megaman Battle Network isn't really the kind of thing I'm talking about. When you're fighting it's basically all real time action. Pausing for chip selection is no more offensive than pausing to switch weapons in classic Megaman, and the way it stops time for certain abilities isn't even one tenth as bad as what Secret of Mana does.

Bolded for emphasis.

Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny for PS1 are honestly also extremely bad for this given how useful magic is and how you'll want to be casting it non-stop in any serious situation. Thank goodness for Tales of Eternia and the later PS2 era games. People missing out on the best game in the series due to a lack of a localized release, Destiny Remake, is a crime against gamers.

[drauch]

Isn't Dark Souls more of a hack n slash action game than an RPG?

Not at all. Gameplay is slow and deliberate. You spam, you die.

Dark Souls is a clone of the Spanish-developed "Severance: Blade of Darkness."

Ummm AYKSHUALLY it's a clone of Rune. And King's Field is a clone of Ultima Underworld!

WTF is going on in this thread, lol.

[Blinge]

WTF is going on in this thread, lol.

[guigui]

Come on, I love reading this thread !
Niche hardcore people discussing a nicher nitpicking subject no ones else in the world gives a shit about. This is the internet at its best. Keep going.

[drauch]

Haha, I'm fine with the argument--that's fun in itself. But there's some funky shit goin' on!

[BIL]

Niche hardcore people discussing a nicher nitpicking subject no ones else in the world gives a shit about. This is the internet at its best.

Word THATS FUCKIN HARDCORE

[cave hermit]

Play Ninja Gaiden Black with me

[Licorice]

So yeah to me Dark Souls is a JARPG, which is a type of JRPG, and I think it is useful to think of it this way. Much more useful, and I dare say correct, than thinking of it as a WRPG, IMO.

No sane person is calling Souls a WRPG.
And you've already walked back from calling it a JRPG. I tried to read your post but honestly just gave up and skimmed it. Yes, congratulations on knowing the names of many different game series. Does it mean you make a salient point? no.

my god. just say "action RPG " and be done with it.

You'd be surprised, there are many people who think Souls is a WRPG.

Anyway, the point was that Souls belongs to a specific school/tradition/culture/cluster of games.

Action RPG is fine, I guess. It's perfectly descriptive. But IMO JRPG can be preferable because it puts Souls in the same group as 7th Saga and Arcus (not action, but Japanese) and not in the same group as Oblivion and Diablo (action, but not Japanese).

So yes I guess this is my point.

[vol.2]

But IMO JRPG can be preferable because it puts Souls in the same group as 7th Saga and Arcus (not action, but Japanese)

What? 7th Saga? You're dreaming. I've played that game and Dark Souls looks nothing like it.

It seems like the crux of your argument is that if it was made in Japan, it's Japanese and, furthermore, you really just like to lump it in with JRPGs because you think that "action RPG" doesn't express exactly how Japanese you think it really is.

You'd be surprised, there are many people who think Souls is a WRPG.

So, because it has so many elements in common with WRPGs that people regularly confuse it for a western game, you want to call it a JRPG so people stop confusing it with WRPGs?