East Versus West: The Role-Playing Conundrum

There's a lot of ways to divide up role-playing games. Fantasy or sci-fi? First person or third person? Turn-based or action? It's hard to talk about RPGs, however, before one division rears its head; Western or Japanese?

There's certain expectation attached to either genre. The Western RPG, or WRPG, is associated with more action adventure stryle gameplay, usually involving you running about in a wide open world, taking quests and levelling up specific skills as you do. The Japanese RPG, or JRPG, is more linked to turn based battles, featuring a range of characters in a vast, and often complex story.

Since I'm currently flip-flopping between an example of both genres, Skyrim and Final Fantasy IX, I figured I might take a whack at comparing and contrasting the two. I will admit to having a limited experience of JRPGs, so please forgive any ridiculously inaccurate sweeping statements. Let's get to it.

For a start, there are a lot fewer of these guys in WRPGs

WRPGs are about choice, JRPGs are about chance


In quite a few JRPGs that I've played, you tend to follow quite a linear path through the game, and then in about the last quarter, you gain access to an airship or such, giving you freedom to roam the world. However, a lot of the time, if you go back to locations, you'll have already missed out on certain missions. Certain items only show up in specific sections of the game. Doors are only open once. A perfect example; one of the best weapons in FFIX is only available if you get to a fairly late point in the game in under 12 hours, but to do that, you'd have to literally rush the main plot, skipping a whole host of content.
Conversely, WRPGs lay the entire world out from the start and give you access to pretty much everything. You can go where you want, take as long as you want and do what you want and there's no penalty for this. Okay, so some quests might annoy another faction, or murdering someone might prematurely end a quest, but for the most, everything in the game is always there for the taking.

In JRPGs you inhabit a role, in WRPGs you create a role


What's the very first thing you do in most WRPGs? Most of the time, you go through some kind of character creation section, choosing your character's appearance, their skills, their favourite pizza topping and so forth. Basically, you create you. You create who you will be in these adventures. And then away you go! Off to battle evil, slay dragons, rescue maidens and become the greatest damn blacksmith in all of Tamriel. Just me on that last one?
In JRPGs, your character is already waiting for you, fresh out of the angst oven (sorry, sorry). You don't build your own character, but rather you take on the role of pre-existing characters. This is partially because JRPGs are far more story driven, and laso because of the team based nature of the games. Can you imagine what a drag it'd be to create all your characters in a FF game?
Which one is better? I don't know. I suppose, technically, the WRPG is truer to the pen and paper roots of the term "role playing game", what with the whole character creation, but in JRPGs you are still playing a "role". It's just not specifically your role.

In a WRPG, you tell your own story. In a JRPG, you are told a story.


One quick look at the journal in Skyrim demonstrates perfectly what I am talking. "Jarl Nordicson asked me to go slay a dragon. I did, now I will return for the bounty." Your character forges his own way through the world, and you create the story to go along with that. It's all done in your head. Yes, there are cutscenes in WRPGs, and yes, there is still a story, but often it's you who stitches together the plot together between the dramatic story missions.
JRPGs have side quest too, but they treat them very differently. You can level up your chcocobo as much as you like. You can collect as many legendary weapons as you want. You can play as many card games as humanly possible. But as soon as you hit the plot, none of that will make a blind bit of difference. No matter how hard you try, the story will play out as it is intended to do so. The show, as they say, must go on.

It's interesting to see it all written like this. At first, I felt that JRPGs and WRPGs were two completely different kettle of fish, but now I see that they are both aiming for the same goal; tell the player a great story. It's in the execution they differ. WRPGs seem to say "YOU are the hero! Head out and make your own way in the world." JRPGs take the story-making responsibilities out of your hands and say " Here's the story, can you make your way through it?"

I'm not here to say which genre is better. In fact, I think it's great we have the two different approaches to RPGs. Variety, as the saying goes, is the spice of life.