Should we rethink how we classify JRPGs, VNs, and other "anime-styled" media?

[RedSwirl]

There was that one thread asking whether Genshin Impact is a JRPG despite being Chinese, and I think one consensus is that it appeals to the same sector of the market despite having different gameplay from any JRPG and not being Japanese. One person argued that Genshin is the same as most other Chinese gatcha games only with a bigger budget, so you'd have to consider all those JRPGs too. The same goes for other things like western games inspired by JRPGs that have the same visual style, western animation that looks like most anime, Original English Language Manga (OEL Manga), etc. I also wondered if people would start calling 13 Sentinels a JRPG because it appeals to the same audience as something like Genshin or Dragon Quest, but VNs are already in that sphere. Someone even called Ace Combat a JRPG because of its storyline.

The only commonality I see between all these things is they feature visual and writing styles originating in shounen manga. It's reached a point where the "RPG" portion of the phrase has nothing to do with it. Personally I've started calling such games all "shounen" games or something.

But then I learned that for a long time now, Asian countries have already had a term for it -- ACG. In China it refers to "Anime/Comics/Games" and seems to generally point to the common audiences of anime, Asian comics (specifically manga, manhwa, and manhua, all of which are spelled with the same Kanji/Chinese characters), and certain video games. The acronym takes on different forms in different places and sometimes incorporates light novels or webnovels. But these acronyms aren't really used on English-speaking places. Instead I've seen people put everything under the umbrella of "JRPG" or "anime game."

 

[Vyse]

Anime game is definitely used as an umbrella term here too.

 

[DragonSpear2462]

I usually look at it this way: The genre of "JRPG" is a "style" of game popularized by Japanese game makers and not defined by who made them.

Example:
Sushi is a Japanese dish. If I made Sushi, and I'm not Japanese, does that mean I didn't make Sushi?

 

[808s & Villainy]

JRPGs have long ago encompassed games not made in Japan

 

[julia crawford]

Ys games are Action RPGs, which are not JRPGs, same for Demon's Souls.

 

[Kurtikeya]

There's a tendency these days to stop looking into how a game plays because of the aversion to anime, be it the characterizations or even the art style. That, and the fact that most of today's JRPGs are otaku-oriented (or if you want, otaku-bait), have led to the things you've described.

 

[sredgrin]

Most of the people that talk about this topic know what everyone means when referring to these things. It's a distinction that really serves so audience.

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

If you can understand why Cuphead is a cartoony game, you can understand why Genshin Impact is called an anime game.

 

[dancingphlower]

I usually look at it this way: The genre of "JRPG" is a "style" of game popularized by Japanese game makers and not defined by who made them.

Example:
Sushi is a Japanese dish. If I made Sushi, and I'm not Japanese, does that mean I didn't make Sushi?

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Sure, but what is that style? The "anime" art style (which even that is kinda nebulous)? Because the types of games that encompass the JRPG genre can vary significantly in how they play. Like Shin Megami Tensei is nothing like Kingdom Hearts, and Ys plays nothing like Dragon Quest, etc.

 

[obsoke]

Ys games are Action RPGs, which are not JRPGs, same for Demon's Souls.

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I'd consider Ys an action JRPG. To me, JRPG is an umbrella which contains "Turn Based" as one sub category, Action as another. You could call the Souls games 3D action JRPGs and I think it would be accurate.

But there is no real consensus on this so it becomes more open to interpretation.

 

[GamerJM]

I honestly consider Genshin Impact closer to a WRPG than a JRPG due to its open world. If people call Ace Combat a JRPG then they're being silly.

 

[LiquidSolid]

It's been like this for years. Remember when some goobers kept arguing that Souls games were actually WRPGs?

Personally, I prefer to just consider any RPG that comes out of Japan to be a JRPG and then they're all sorted into their sub-genres (action, strategy, turn-based, etc). Non-Japanese RPGs that were influenced by JRPGs or anime aren't JRPGs. Like, you can tell me that South Park: The Stick of Truth was influenced by JRPGs but if you tell me it IS a JRPG, I'll laugh at you.

 

[Deleted member 68874]

Agreed.

We just need an "Anime Game" genre.

 

[ARobotCalledV]

The problem with 'anime game' is that it is just as nebulous, if not even more so.

 

[Brawly Likes to Brawl]

I'm not using the term "anime game". Internet discourse already has enough problems with paint wide brushes. suggesting that something 999 and Tales be put in the same umbrella merely because of art-style is ludicrous.

 

[Palazzo]

It makes more sense to classify something based on how it plays versus its aesthetic. A category that includes both Dragon Quest and Genshin Impact is so vaguely defined that it means nothing at all.

 

[Dennis8K]

Final Fantasy games are JRPGs but they are not Anime RPGs.

So, no.

JRPGs =/= Anime RPGs

Anime RPGs are a specific subset of JRPGs/AsianRPGs

 

[Bunty Hoven]

Reminds me of when TLOZ was commonly known as an RPG, seemingly only because it had a fantasy seeing.

I'm actually not that adverse to the term 'anime game' as someone who dirisively uses the term 'movie game', though neither of these would be substitutes for existing genres. There are plenty of games for which emulating anime or movies is their key aim, and it's helpful to know which ones these are to avoid / seek out as appropriate. If we were to base it on visual resemblance alone then that's too broad to be useful.

 

[Rosebud]

I'm not using the term "anime game". Internet discourse already has enough problems with paint wide brushes. suggesting that something 999 and Tales be put in the same umbrella merely because of art-style is ludicrous.

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Yeah. Especially because people usually use the term as derogatory, no matter what it is.

It's like calling every western AAA game a "movie game".

 

[NSESN]

Genshin takes a lot from BotW that takes a lot from Skyrim
so I dunno if calling it a jrpg fits unless you consider skyrim a jrpg

 

[J-Soul]

Just drop the J and call them action rpgs, turn based rpgs, etc. I don't think art style should really make an impact on what genre a game is.

 

[Dolce]

Anime just means cartoon. If you wanted to call games anime games, then you could also put cartoon RPGs made in the West like Costume Quest. Or anything with a cartoon style. Adventure Time would be an anime game.

Just call each game what it is. Tales is an action RPG. Final Fantasy VIII is a pseudo-turn based RPG. Final Fantasy X is a turn based RPG. Call them RPGs. Go in depth with their combat and styles. Whatever.

 

[Pasokon Deacon]

I prefer genre definitions based on mechanics, game loop/structure, and archetypal tropes more than just whichever popular manga-/anime-based aesthetic is in vogue. Differentiating between ye olde Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy at a glance requires looking past the big eyes, vibrant colors, and pandering tropes to instead classify them based on their fundamentals.

If I had my way, though, we'd ditch calling them "x-RPG/role-playing game" on principle since, well, the definition of role-playing game makes far more sense in the context of tabletop games and systems where players and game runners are actually making the content as they go. (This makes MMORPGs the exception because so much of those games are about the party dynamics.) I personally call games like Fire Emblem "strategic adventure wargames" (SAWs) since they mix a character/story focus in with variations on wargaming designs born from the mid-1990s onward. And that would make FF, Dragon Quest, etc. "character-centric adventure wargames" (CCAWs) to reflect their D&D lineage (itself a tabletop system born from wargames), so on and so forth. But xRPG is such a common term because it's grandfathered after years of use in enthusiast press and then online communities, not because it makes more semantic/historical sense than the alternatives. (ARPGs would become "stat-heavy action [adventure] in my book.)

After that, feel free to append modifiers like "anime-esque" (or "cartoony") or "otaku" for things like Omega Labyrinth. But those are strictly modifiers, not useful genre designations in and of themselves.

 

[Deleted member 49438]

After many "what qualifies as a JRPG" threads on ERA, I think all we've been able to determine is that no one agrees on what the term means in the first place so it's basically a useless descriptor, especially for genre classification. Anime game I guess is an easy way to describe games of certain artstyles, but isn't ultimately helpful for genre classification either imo. Loosely you can say they may share some tropes but it's a bit too broad.

For Genshin specifically... I think Gacha games inherently have a lot of RPG elements (level ups, equipments, evolution/class up, etc), but Genshin has a ton Action/Adventure sort of stuff to it with the gameplay & open world. Ultimately I think Action RPG is maybe the most accurate descriptor?

 

[ThereAreFourNaan]

I think we can all agree on a new, neutral, descriptive term like "weeb shit".

 

[Dolce]

I prefer genre definitions based on mechanics, game loop/structure, and archetypal tropes more than just whichever popular manga-/anime-based aesthetic is in vogue. Differentiating between ye olde Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy at a glance requires looking past the big eyes, vibrant colors, and pandering tropes to instead classify them based on their fundamentals.

If I had my way, though, we'd ditch calling them "x-RPG/role-playing game" on principle since, well, the definition of role-playing game makes far more sense in the context of tabletop games and systems where players and game runners are actually making the content as they go. (This makes MMORPGs the exception because so much of those games are about the party dynamics.) I personally call games like Fire Emblem "strategic adventure wargames" (SAWs) since they mix a character/story focus in with variations on wargaming designs born from the mid-1990s onward. And that would make FF, Dragon Quest, etc. "character-centric adventure wargames" (CCAWs), so on and so forth. But xRPG is such a common term because it's grandfathered after years of use in enthusiast press and then online communities, not because it makes more semantic/historical sense than the alternatives. (ARPGs would become "stat-heavy action [adventure] in my book.)

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Pretty much every genre name doesn't really make sense anymore, but that's because video games are rarely one genre and as games evolved. But also because genres are arbitrary.

Something like The Sims is as close to "role playing" as you can get... but we consider it a life simulator.

 

[Hilarious_Bearious]

I think people get way too deep into their feelings when it comes to discussing things like genres. You'd rarely place a band or album squarely in a single genre, why do it for games? To me JRPG is a fluid term whose meaning changes depending on context. Like Dark Souls is a JRPG in the context of "games with RPG mechanics made in Japan", but not in terms of "style of games that were called JRPGs in the SNES era". Trying to cement a genre to mean exactly one thing is futile and counterproductive. I understand that some people have really rigid, dichotomous ways of thinking, but that's just not how language works.

 

[Dolce]

You'd rarely place a band or album squarely in a single genre, why do it for games?

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Hahah... trust me, these arguments happen in music all the time. Genre purity is even more important in music, too.

The only thing I really have to say about the Dark Souls thing is that people who rally against calling Souls a JRPG do it because it's "not Japanese" which is so weird to me. Dark Souls is one of the most Japanese RPGs ever released, with mechanics that you'd never really find in a lot of Western games, at least in practice.

 

[Hilarious_Bearious]

Hahah... trust me, these arguments happen in music all the time. Genre purity is even more important in music, too.

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That doesn't seem to be a thing in the mainstream though. Like what would you call the Beatles? They're a combination of rock & roll, blues, pop, psychedelic etc. It's perfectly normal for bands to get labelled with multiple genres, and new genres get created all the time (e.g. nu-metal was not a thing when I was a kid).

While I'm sure genre purity is a thing in the more enthusiastic, gatekeeping superfandom, but popular information sources like Wikipedia will happily slap half a dozen genres on a music article.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Hahah... trust me, these arguments happen in music all the time. Genre purity is even more important in music, too.

The only thing I really have to say about the Dark Souls thing is that people who rally against calling Souls a JRPG do it because it's "not Japanese" which is so weird to me. Dark Souls is one of the most Japanese RPGs ever released, with mechanics that you'd never really find in a lot of Western games, at least in practice.

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Dark Souls has tons of WRPG mechanics in it.

Created character, non-linear, Western inspired aesthetic, not traditional story telling (meaning not told through cutscenes), armor degredation, weapon degredation, inventory limits, weigh limits, story choices, there's WRPG stuff all over those games. It has alot more in common with Witcher and Elder Scrolls than it does Persona or Kingdom Hearts.

 

[Dolce]

Dark Souls has tons of WRPG mechanics in it.

Created character, non-linear, Western inspired aesthetic, not traditional story telling (meaning not told through cutscenes), armor degredation, weapon degredation, inventory limits, weigh limits, story choices, there's WRPG stuff all over those games. It has alot more in common with Witcher and Elder Scrolls than it does Persona or Kingdom Hearts.

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A lot of those mechanics tie back to very old RPGs and dungeon crawlers, which quite a few Japanese series splintered off from. Games like Fire Emblem have used durability for decades, for example. Lots of Japanese RPGs also have various inventory limits, some of the oldest being a lot more restrictive. Non-linear gameplay is also not a Western thing, as games going back to Zelda 1 let you tackle the game in any order. And neither are story choices, with Visual Novels and Japanese adventure games taking choice to an extreme far beyond most RPGs.

I don't think of most of those concepts as either Western or Japanese, because they're not and used within both game development cultures. But the way Souls plays, the way animations work, its usage of evading and rolling and iframes, are all a very Japanese style of game.

 

[Rosebud]

Dark Souls has tons of WRPG mechanics in it.

Created character, non-linear, Western inspired aesthetic, not traditional story telling (meaning not told through cutscenes), armor degredation, weapon degredation, inventory limits, weigh limits, story choices, there's WRPG stuff all over those games. It has alot more in common with Witcher and Elder Scrolls than it does Persona or Kingdom Hearts.

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Persona and KH also don't have much in common.

Persona is a turn-based dungeon crawler, monster catching game with social sim mechanics and a silent protagonist. KH is a pure action party based RPG.

 

[RedSwirl]

I'm not using the term "anime game". Internet discourse already has enough problems with paint wide brushes. suggesting that something 999 and Tales be put in the same umbrella merely because of art-style is ludicrous.

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Persona and KH also don't have much in common.

Persona is a turn-based dungeon crawler, monster catching game with social sim mechanics and a silent protagonist. KH is a pure action party based RPG.

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That's why I brought this up. All of these aforementioned games appeal to the same general audience or at least appeal to intersecting groups even though mechanically they have almost nothing in common. They simply share a similar set of visual and storytelling tropes originating in shounen manga.

 

[Rosebud]

That's why I brought this up. All of these aforementioned games appeal to the same general audience or at least appeal to intersecting groups even though mechanically they have almost nothing in common. They simply share a similar set of visual and storytelling tropes originating in shounen manga.

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Western games usually appeal to the same audience as well, but we don't put Assassin's Creed and Battlefield in one "box".

 

[mute]

I've always considered JRPGs to be Dragon Quest-alikes. The further away you get from DQ (must have x qualities from this list type of deal) the harder time I have calling it a JRPG. Don't really care where it is made. Having an "anime" aesthetic, saving the world, recruiting and fighting with party members, each contribute "JRPG points" to a total and if you are ~>some threshold then you count as a JRPG imo. So you can see how something like Genshin Impact gets a lot of points whereas your typical souls game does not.

 

[Comrade Grogu]

Anime game is definitely used as an umbrella term here too.

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Good point. And good username. I also like Skies of Arcadia and wish there was a sequel to it. 😅

Anyway, I think you raise interesting points RedSwirl

I'll just say that we may need to re-classify or rethink how we classify games going forward because I've also noticed that there are more genres and different combinations of genres coming up that have been popularized or in the process of being popularized. But also, calling Genshin Impact a "JRPG" is just plain wrong and even then it's different from most RPGs and more similar to BOTW, of course. And keep in mind that "Asian" game is made in Asia.

Actually, since I have WeChat friends and know a thing or two about China, I'll just say that they have weird classifications for genres that don't jive with Western classifications, interestingly enough. Wuxia and xianxia are, for example, genres that don't often appear in the West.

I'm rambling and meandering a bit, but I'm basically just saying that I agree with you in my usual haphazard way.

 

[purseowner]

The only commonality I see between all these things is they feature visual and writing styles originating in shounen manga. It's reached a point where the "RPG" portion of the phrase has nothing

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But this isn't even universally true. Sure, shonen tropes can be fairly commonplace in JRPGs, but a lot of games in the genres you list take influence from structures and tropes from seinen manga and in rare cases lean more towards shojo and josei. Some are highly literary or cinematic in style and take influence from those mediums not from manga at all.

 

[Unknownlight]

Ah, the great JRPG debate. I've been here before.

Genres are useful as a way of helping people find other games they may like based on their existing taste. Any other definition of genre is pointless semantics.

My stance: Undertale is a JRPG. Dark Souls is not.

 

[mindsale]

I'm not sure who would call Genshin Impact a JRPG or why, but more to the point - it's just a style of gameplay and tropes and stat demarcation, not necessarily where it's made.

 

[Dolce]

Ah, the great JRPG debate. I've been here before.

Genres are useful as a way of helping people find other games they may like based on their existing taste. Any other definition of genre is pointless semantics.

My stance: Undertale is a JRPG. Dark Souls is not.

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Even that kind of falls apart, since even super traditional RPGs vary too much. Games like King's Field, Megami Tensei, Dragon Quest, Pokemon, Tales, Sweet Home, Metal Max... All of these are important evolutions of what is traditionally considered the JRPG genre, and you can't have modern JRPGs without these games.

I just don't use the JRPG term anymore because it's dumb, but when I do, I generally like to consider everything that is a part of the genre. From Software's JRPG lineage has existed for decades, so it's easy for me to call Souls a JRPG because well... the old games were called that for decades, which Souls is a spiritual successor to.

Edit: I also want to add that while I don't think RPGs in the style of JApanese games can't be created by other people, the importance of JRPG as a term comes more from the fact that it represents culturally what Japanese developers are creating. This is also the same importance you find in other minority created media. Pointing out South American, African, or Asian cultural developments is important, and that is more where the importance of JRPG comes from to me.

 

[Dogui]

I don't think we should define video game genres by aesthetic styles. Even if most games considered Jrpgs have some level of anime, they have their own structure and would work with any visual, no matter if something realistic like Yakuza LaD or even western cartoon style like the modern South Park games, Citizens of Earth, or maybe even LISA.

I think it's even a little sad that Jrpgs are considered "anime styled media" for starters. Same with VNs, since we have enough indie stuff in the genre with western aesthetic styles.

Calling them "shounen" games are maybe even worse lmao, it implies that Jrpgs can't have any other kind of stories aside the usual ones. That means Tactics Ogre is not a Jrpg but Devil May Cry is?

That said, nobody agrees 100% on what a Jrpg is. Stuff like CrossCode, Dark Souls, Yakuza or Castlevania SOTN were considered Jrpgs by some and not by others. Some people are still on the "Jrpgs needs to be turn based" or "Dark Souls is Wrpg because western armor or something" line of thinking.

I like to think of Jrpgs as games focused on abstract progression systems, guided stories and party based dynamics, but even then the last 2 aren't a rule for the genre.

It would be great if we could call them Dragon Quest likes, or something completely new, but we know these videogame genre stuff never changes.

Can't say anything about Genshin Impact since i haven't played it.

 

[BabyShams]

Nah, I think anime game works

 

[StrappingYoungLance]

I don't think we need to rethink the entire genre just because some people want to call Genshin Impact a JRPG when it's really not (and not because it's not from Japan) or are misusing it for other games (13 Sentinels is not a JRPG, who is even saying that? Ace Combat!? Why are we paying any lip service to such ridiculousness?).

Anime game sounds like a terrible term. DMCV, 13 Sentinels and Genshin Impact all in the same genre? Awful.

 

[RedSwirl]

Calling them "shounen" games are maybe even worse lmao, it implies that Jrpgs can't have any other kind of stories aside the usual ones. That means Tactics Ogre is not a Jrpg but Devil May Cry is?

That said, nobody agrees 100% on what a Jrpg is. Stuff like CrossCode, Dark Souls, Yakuza or Castlevania SOTN were considered Jrpgs by some and not by others. Some people are still on the "Jrpgs needs to be turn based" or "Dark Souls is Wrpg because western armor or something" line of thinking.

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The issue with stuff like Tactics Ogre is that you don't really see Japanese developers making RPGs like that anymore. I'm starting to think a main reason Dark Souls gets pushed out of the "JRPG" descriptor is because Japanese developers basically aren't making dark fantasy RPGs anymore.

 

[Dolce]

The issue with stuff like Tactics Ogre is that you don't really see Japanese developers making RPGs like that anymore. I'm starting to think a main reason Dark Souls gets pushed out of the "JRPG" descriptor is because Japanese developers basically aren't making dark fantasy RPGs anymore.

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Dark fantasy games still exist within the dungeon crawler space in Japan mostly. Given the huge influence Wizardry has had for decades, there's a lot of Japanese takes on it, heck even Wizardry has been developed there for a long time.

 

[StrappingYoungLance]

Dark Souls is definitely not a JRPG.

 

[Rommaz]

Just drop the J and call them action rpgs, turn based rpgs, etc. I don't think art style should really make an impact on what genre a game is.

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THIS. This is the best thing to do imo.

It's like oh code vein is a JRPG because of art style but dark souls isn't when they are the exact same genre, just call them arpgs

 

[RedSwirl]

Dark fantasy games still exist within the dungeon crawler space in Japan mostly. Given the huge influence Wizardry has had for decades, there's a lot of Japanese takes on it, heck even Wizardry has been developed there for a long time.

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Which ones? Did another Japanese Wizardry come out a few years ago? Maybe Stranger of Sword City counts?

 

[Dogui]

The issue with stuff like Tactics Ogre is that you don't really see Japanese developers making RPGs like that anymore. I'm starting to think a main reason Dark Souls gets pushed out of the "JRPG" descriptor is because Japanese developers basically aren't making dark fantasy RPGs anymore.

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Even if that's true (Which i disagree but imo this is not important), i still think it's silly to define a video game genre by setting or narrative, or tone, or anything that have nothing to do with the gameplay.

What if i make a game that plays 100% like Dragon Quest but with a dark cosmic horror narrative/setting/tone? What genre that would be?

Dark Souls to me always felt more like Metroidvania games with RPG elements. I think it makes sense that Souls like is a thing, because it works in an unique way compared to other RPGs. The same could be said by Zelda and Diablo games.

Now, in tone, Zelda games are pretty similar to Dragon Quest games, but i don't think anyone in 2021 would call Zelda a Jrpg because of that. Souls likes, Zelda likes, Diablo likes or Rogue likes are defined by mechanics, not anything about tone, setting or narrative.

That said, despite Dark Souls being considered its own genre, they are a lot more similar to Jrpgs than Wrpgs for a lot of reasons. Its system are focused on combat rather than roleplay skills, there's no dialogue chains, and everything works in an abstract "gamey" "JRPGey" way. I guess it's the case where people argues "JRPGs are all the same" but any game that tries something different "is not really a Jrpg".

 

[brinstar]

Dark Souls has tons of WRPG mechanics in it.

Created character, non-linear, Western inspired aesthetic, not traditional story telling (meaning not told through cutscenes), armor degredation, weapon degredation, inventory limits, weigh limits, story choices, there's WRPG stuff all over those games. It has alot more in common with Witcher and Elder Scrolls than it does Persona or Kingdom Hearts.

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I dunno, you could just as easily apply every one of those points to the SaGa games