- Story takes the forefront. Often, JRPGs have a very linear storyline that progresses in a 'string of pearls' pattern. A cutscene or story moment will explain what's going on and make the player's next objective clear. Then, the player will go somewhere else, where the next cutscene awaits to tell them where to go next. The cutscenes are the pearls, and the gameplay is the string connecting them.
- A focus on upgrading your character(s). Usually, you can level up and gain equipment and money by killing monsters. You can use new abilities from levelling up and new equipment to defeat even more monsters, and advance the story.
- Random Battles are a prime staple of JRPGs. These usually occur randomly when the player is walking around on the world map, or when the player runs into an indicator of a monster on the world map. In either case, the player is taken to a different screen, where a battle is carried out, usually using some variation on a turn based fighting system.
Whatever it is, hopefully I'll be able to trigger that primal urge with Urban Odyssey.
When I read the title, I thought you were going to actually try and answer some of those questions you posed... I think you're a little misguided on the term JRPG as well, I always took it as a description of ANY roleplaying game made in Japan--an American developer could make an identical game, but it certainly wouldn't be a JRPG.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it's up to the developer to introduce enough original ideas and content to make the game feel fresh, even if it is an RPG. If people playing the game feel that it's too generic, that speaks to a weakness in design.
I think JRPGs are generally easy to play because they're very much story driven, and you can generally just go along with the story whilst enjoying whatever gameplay mechanics they put in there for battle and character development.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the key things to have in a JRPG is an interesting character development system, so as to allow for some freedom in the gameplay, as the games are generally very linear. Note how every FF game uses a different system.
@Banov: Hm, I guess my use of the term was a little misleading. Here I was referring to the style of a JRPG, which often has the things I talked about, as opposed to an actual RPG made by a Japanese developer.
ReplyDelete@Man of Doom: I agree, although it seems like many "JRGPs" fail in creating anything innovative in their stories or gameplay mechanics.