BA7 Research report (research)

RPGs Overview.

What is and RPG? RPG stands for role-playing game a term that usually refers to the role-playing video game. The player controls a protagonist character that is immersed into a game world; you usually control the one character or a party/ team of characters that you develop as the game progresses. They are influenced by tabled top role-playing games, with both you are immersed with the story telling however it removes the need for a Game master as the narrative is driven by the game itself.

Cultural differences.

RPGs are generally split into two different categories Western and eastern, eastern commonly known as JRPG or Japanese role-playing game. The split between the two is mostly caused by the stylistic and cultural differences that inspire the games themselves.

The conventional Eastern JRPGs became popular and were influenced and made well known my instalments of the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series. These are two of the longest running JRPG franchises and have become world famous. 

During the 1990’s JRPGs were more like fantasy novels than games and involved a lot of text heavy narrative, expecting the player to sit and read through hours of story as it unfolded on screen. This would have limited the JRPGs following to older audiences. However due to the progression of other game genres catching up in popularity and beginning to use things such as voice acting to tell the story, they were becoming obsolete and developers had to come up with something to make their JRPGs to stand out more. So this was the time when JRPGs became very cinematic, using the latest CJI (computer generated images) animations to bring the characters to life on your TV screens and dazzle you with pretty videos.  This is where Square Soft came in with the Final Fantasy series, which is now well known for it’s pretty Cinematic cut scenes. However while JRPGs were moving away from it Western RPGs were trying to become for novel like and include for story driven game play. JRPGs differentiate themselves by having a stronger focus on scripted narratives and character drama, alongside streamline game play. These are aspects that are quite often adopted by western games.

Modern JRPGs mostly like to feature turn-based battles/ Modern western RPGs are most likely to feature real-time combat.

Stylistic differences

Many early JRPGs on consoles were seen as form of interactive Anime or Manga that had been built around a western rule system.  Aesthetically they usually have bright colours, and anime art style, younger characters, faster paced game play and focus on tight, linear storylines. They are unlikely to let the player customise or make their own character, as it would most of the time interfere with the plot.

Western tends to keep a serious gritty tone, predominantly male characters with overly masculine features and mannerisms. Some key features usually are: darker graphics, older characters, greater focus on roaming (open world exploration), realism and they are more likely to allow the player to customise their character.