VRP Madness (II): Looking at American Style v. Japanese Style

Does He Ever Stop Talking?

Gads, even the guy doing the titles is tearing into me now.

Most of what I’ve said covers A-style and J-Style VRPGs of my so called fabled youth.  These days…  Well, there’s been a change.

A-Style games, more often than not, have seen a slight restructuring, a tightening if you will.  Rarely will one be forced to create an entire party.  One character, the player’s avatar, will be the limited.  All other characters will be made by the developers.

In addition to this, players tend to be given their heads in exploration and how their characters behave.  Irritate a companion too much and they might leave or even attack.  Choices made have an effect on the world at large.  You tended to be more involved.

A great example of this comes from the creators of Icewind Dale, Bioware.  Their Dragon Age series has all the character control/quirky companions one could ever hope for in a game.  In fairness to them, they were doing great things along these lines back in Icewind Dale times (as well as reportedly fixing up the meanest brontoburger you ever did have).  But these days… these games… my God.  They are good.

While over on the J-Style side we have…

Well…

I was going to be snide and mention Final Fantasy XIII and its single corridor mazes, but a.) that’s not fair to the other games and b.) I can’t honestly say I’ve played the game.  Which is telling, don’t you think?  Especially from a guy who’d spend a whole page raving about an earlier installment.

(That said, I do intend to play it eventually and have the sequel demo waiting for me on the PS3)

The fact it, J-Style VRPGs seem sort of stuck in the mud, covering the same ground.  Make no mistake, there are excellent games out there (especially for the PSP).  But I’m not hearing about great strides like I’m seeing over on the A-Style of things.

Will this be the way things remain?  Who can say?  It, obviously, depends on market place and the inspiration of the developers, as it always has.  There might even be a third or even forth option in future.  South Korea has released a few VRPGs of interest and no doubt will again.  Other countries do make video games (as strange as that might sound).  Something new and better might be over the horizon.

As it stands, there are good things to say about both styles these days, and that’s not a bad thing at all.

Related articles

• VRP Madness (I): Setting the Stage (welltuncares.wordpress.com)
• Role-playing video games (wikipedia.com)

Pages: 1 2 3