You Got some Western in my Japanese RPG.
May 28, 2012
So last friday I picked up Dragon's Dogma, I had a good idea of how the game was going to work before I got it, but I wasn't prepared for how oddly familiar it was going to play. It's a role playing game, so it's going to have a certain "feel" to it, and this game was just screaming Western RPG, funny thing is it's made in Japan.
Now for those of you who aren't gamers, even for those of you who are, but don't dabble into the role playing genre often, RPG's made in America, or Europe, often called "Western" RPGs have a totally different feel from those made in Asian territories, mostly Japan, which are obviously called "Japanese" RPGs. I could go into detail on the difference between the two, but that would probably bore the hell out of all of you. If you do want to know more I'd recommend watching Extra Credits' three part series on the matter, much more concise and eloquent;y then I ever could.
To simplify it the main difference I see between a Japanese and Western RPG is that in a Japanese RPG you control a character with a preset personality and emotional state. You control the character, but you don't really decide for him. Games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and others, everything the main character is going to do is more or less set in stone. In Western RPGs however for the most part the character you play is a blank slate. You pick the their appearance, you pick their class and fighting style. This is the case in games like Ultima, Baldur's Gate and such, and the latest rage in Western RPGs is a moral choice system, like those found in Mass Effect, Dragon Age and The Elder Scrolls series. To put it short in a Japanese RPG narrative is the focus, you're playing a well crafted interactive story. While Western RPGs focus more on player emersion. You're still playing a well crafted interactive story, but you're not playing a predecided character, you're playing you.
Dragon's Dogma is very much a Japanese made game, but with it's huge open ended world, with an equally huge open ended story and the in depth character creation system You can obviously see the influence of the Western RPG in this game