How many Japanese?

[Atreides]

100%. FF-X, FF-X2 and Guilty Gear Isuka.

[BattleCookiee]

Japan is the land of innovation. 

 

Could be, but a lot of innovations are best left forgotten again...

 

And about games: 100% Non-Japan. They probably don't make a lot of good PC-games...

[Laozi]

about 10% of the games I own are japanese.

 

I have no opinion on how much greater one culture is to another, if you can't find value in another's culture then thats your shortcoming not theirs.

[Morgoth]

Yes.

 

Japan is the land of innovation. 

True. Too bad their games don't manage it to come out to the PC. This Okami game (drawing with calligraphy into the gameworld) just looks too good.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

True. Too bad their games don't manage it to come out to the PC. This Okami game (drawing with calligraphy into the gameworld) just looks too good. 

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That game really needs a DS version.

[Musopticon?]

ELITISM! YAY!

 

 

 

 

70% Amerikan, 30% European

[Meshugger]

ELITISM! YAY!

 

 

 

 

70% Amerikan, 30% European

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Yes, i started this thread as a funny result of my suprising discovery of game library.

 

Of course it had to dumb down to generalization and elitism. Sad, sad, sad.

[Hell Kitty]

I have more Japanese console games, but more American & European PC games. I have more PC games, but I'll be buggered if I know a percentage.

 

As for the superior culture, that would be Mongolia.

[Hell Kitty]

ELITISM! YAY!

 

It's not elitism when it's the truth!

 

It's a simple fact that all Japanese games are RPGs where you play an angtsy teenager and all Western games are FPS where you play a mute macho hero.

[Surreptishus]

Back in the day most of my games were of japanese origin by virtue of being for Megadrive/Genesis or Super Nintendo. I think that has something to do with genre as well.

[Musopticon?]

ELITISM! YAY!

 

It's not elitism when it's the truth!

 

It's a simple fact that all Japanese games are RPGs where you play an angtsy teenager and all Western games are FPS where you play a mute macho hero.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

YES! See the truth and live by it!

[Musopticon?]

Yeah, I agree. Square has gone too far trying to garner for female players. Tidus wasn't exactly bad, god knows I've heard more than enough whine about "butch lesbian" or "freakin andro", but Varn's outfit and look doesn't exactly tell of great character. Sheesh.

[Meshugger]

Yeah, I agree. Square has gone too far trying to garner for female players. Tidus wasn't exactly bad, god knows I've heard more than enough whine about "butch lesbian" or "freakin andro", but Varn's outfit and look doesn't exactly tell of great character. Sheesh.

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FFX had Auron to counterbalance Tidus. Hopefully Bash does the same for FFXII.

[Dhruin]

0% Japanese, couldn't count the others.

 

I don't like anime and I don't like the common angsty teenage androgenous protagonists.

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if it's 0% Japanese, then it's kind of obvious it's 100% other.

 

I'm glad such preconceptions dont keep me from playing games anymore

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Most of us bring preconceptions to our gaming: I don't look into sports, driving or realistic flight sims because they don't interest me. Likewise, anime simply doesn't appeal to me visually and makes it very hard for me to relate to or enjoy the characters. It's simply a matter of my personal taste.

 

If you play all genres and categories of games from bridge to cricket sims - more power to you.

 

I am, however, prepared to accept that I somewhat uninformed about JRPGs, because I have only tried a few. I guess a prolific (I'm told RPGs are the largest genre category in Japan) and innovative (your words) must have wide variety of artistic styles in use.

 

So - what non-anime JRPGs should I check out? Preferably one where I can create a character, or at the very least, identify with the ones provided.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Most of us bring preconceptions to our gaming: I don't look into sports, driving or realistic flight sims because they don't interest me.  Likewise, anime simply doesn't appeal to me visually and makes it very hard for me to relate to or enjoy the characters.  It's simply a matter of my personal taste.

 

If you play all genres and categories of games from bridge to cricket sims - more power to you.

 

I am, however, prepared to accept that I somewhat uninformed about JRPGs, because I have only tried a few.  I guess a prolific (I'm told RPGs are the largest genre category in Japan) and innovative (your words) must have wide variety of artistic styles in use.

 

So - what non-anime JRPGs should I check out?  Preferably one where I can create a character, or at the very least, identify with the ones provided.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

True, but it will be gameplay elements that I will focus on. Not the package they are wrapped up in.

 

I've played Crickets sims, cant say I've played bridge on a computer. I'm not fond of platform games, or driving games. But purely on a gameplay level.

 

Yes there are a lot of JRPGs. But it really depends on your definition of what anime is. If you think that FFX is anime, then dont bother.

 

What do you mean by create a character ? Do you mean create your own character with it's own background and history ?Because thats becoming something that games dont do much anyway these days.

 

No offence, but how would I know what you would and would not identify with ? Varn looks odd, but he's quite a likeable chap, probably more so than Tidus (at least at the start).

 

It's not my job to "sell" JRPGs. But by dismissing them on such a level, you are missing out on both fantastic stories and some great gameplay.

[Gromnir]

"So - what non-anime JRPGs should I check out? Preferably one where I can create a character, or at the very least, identify with the ones provided."

 

that is a good question. we suffered through a couple final fantasy games and one or two others, 'cause folks kept insisting that we were not giving jrpgs a chance. maybe we would be better off trying a jrpg that ain't quite so... japanese.

 

am willing to give it one more go if somebody we trust gots a suggestion.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Haitoku]

as to japanese game story... you gotta buy into the anime frame of mind to choke down japanese game story. the writers of japanese game stories and anime stories seems to be in a competition with each other to come up with increasingly implausible scenarios, 'cause the more bizarre a plot is, the better it is, right? sure, you might be able to reduce 80% of all anime stories down to Godzilla or Pinocchio plots, but they make Godzilla some quasi-intelligent plant spores that is dropping to earth and is threatening to kill all animal life on the planet... somehow that makes the Godzilla story "kewl." a monster that ultimately man created in his arrogance and his lack of deference to Nature

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

I myself can enjoy both jRPGs and cRPGs easily.  I typicaly enjoy the japanese stories more, but I do love the interraction of cRPGs.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Me too , although that wasnt always the case. What I have found recently though is that the things I used to enjoy about Western RPGs are disapearing from the design anyway. KOTOR/II,Jade Empire all as good as pregenerated characters , but without the story that an established identity would allow for.

 

Both KOTOR and Jade Empire annoyed me greatly since they took control of what was supposed to be my character so they could play out some stupid plot twists.

 

"There is a hole in your defence".

"Really" ?

"ummm wonder how that could have gotten there".

 

Character comes to the only logical conclusion yet does nothing to address the problem since it's required for a plot twist. Now if thats supposed to be my character why cant I train out the hole ? Why do I have to wait till I've been killed before I can train it out ? The only reason is because the designers wanted that twist and did everything to make sure it happens.

[karka]

as to japanese game story... you gotta buy into the anime frame of mind to choke down japanese game story. the writers of japanese game stories and anime stories seems to be in a competition with each other to come up with increasingly implausible scenarios, 'cause the more bizarre a plot is, the better it is, right? sure, you might be able to reduce 80% of all anime stories down to Godzilla or Pinocchio plots, but they make Godzilla some quasi-intelligent plant spores that is dropping to earth and is threatening to kill all animal life on the planet... somehow that makes the Godzilla story "kewl." a monster that ultimately man created in his arrogance and his lack of deference to Nature

[Dhruin]

The handful of JRPGs I have tried all had an art-style I didn't like, angsty androgenous teenage protagonists and gameplay I didn't enjoy. Perhaps you keep trying a genre that disappoints until you find a good game but I generally don't. So, it's not merely the wrapper I dislike but the wrapper represents gameplay I don't like.

 

Again, I'm willing to accept I might have short-changed the genre. I don't really like the sound of watching a story - and if I'm going to do that, the story needs to be damn good, with characters I enjoy. That is the gameplay, right?

 

I have no idea who Varn or the other guy is and a google search was too confusing, so that didn't help. FFX skirts anime but doesn't look too over the top, so that's fine. I would have thought character creation was self-explanatory. No, you don't have to sell JRPGs to me but it will further the conversation if you at least give me an example to check out, since you presumably disagreed about the angsty teenagers comment.

[Haitoku]

So we can say that, JRPGs have nothing with Role Playing. Right?

 

Not in the sense that you are refering to no.

 

You play the role of a character.

 

But this isn't old school table top RPGs were you make your character.

 

Dhruin, I will suggest some titles... But I fear that you might not like them right away and give up. =X

 

Xenogears for PS1. Best story of any game I've ever played.

 

Chrono Cross for PS1. Perfect mesh of awsome gameplay, killer storyline and a beautiful soundtrack. It has over 40 playable characters, i'm sure there is atleast one you will like. One of those rare jRPGs were choices do matter.

 

Final Fantasy IV & VI for your pc... I mean SNES. Classics really, overall great games.

 

SMT: Avatar Tuner I & II. I hesitate to recommend these, because the first is barely more then a dungeon crawler RPG, the meat of the story is in the second one. However, without playing the first. The characters motives aren't very clear or believable. Beautiful games.

 

I hope you atleast find one enjoyable.

[karka]

I have Chrono Cross and FF7 in my collection. I will play them when i have spare time. After that, my opinions may change! Who knows?

[Haitoku]

I have Chrono Cross and FF7 in my collection. I will play them when i have spare time. After that, my opinions may change! Who knows?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

If you ever manage to finish playing FFVII, please let everyone know that there is more to Cloud that just spikey hair and a big sword. =)

[Craigboy2]

(This for consoles only)

 

I recently did count of my gaming library and noticed how many japanese games that i have compared to the rest of the world:

 

Japanese: 22

The rest: 13

 

Thus, the japanese titles take up 62% of all my games. How's your library? (This was conducted on my Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube libraries.)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

None of my games are Japanese.

[Althernai]

JRPGs around about watching a story unfold. 

Your actions... decisions... roads taken have little impact on this.  There are very few jRPGs with multiple endings and actual choices that matter.  Hell, the only ones I can think of were choices actually matter are Chrono Cross and Star Ocean II.

 

Methinks you forgot Chrono Trigger.

 

If you can't sit back and just enjoy a story, well then jRPGs are probably not for you.

 

I can sit back and enjoy a story. However, if that's all I'm going to be doing, then what's the point of making this an RPG rather than a movie or an anime series? Last spring, my roommate was playing the latest Xeno-something game (Xenosaga 2? I remember the plot, but not the name). It was not a bad story as far as such stories go, but neither I nor he nor any of our other roommates saw why it was a game rather than an anime. IIRC, the hope was that somebody would just take all of the cutscenes and paste them together (and somebody had done that for the previous one).

 

For me, an RPG must include at least some choices, some point where what my character (as opposed to someone else's character) does matters. They don't have to be very important, but they should be there or else the game was better off as something else. Thus, even though I like quite a few anime series and I don't mind the peculiar looking protagonists, I don't own any Japanese RPGs.