I was wrong in saying FFVI lacked an ontogenic game. The player lacks control over it but the goals of fighting are ultimately to get through dungeons and to become strong enough to fight the next enemies. The bars still fill up.
SRPGs may simplify the long game, offering no exploration or extra battles, but there's always an option to customize your army and interface with the ontogenic game in between battles.
So every JRPG that I can think of really does have three layers. Yes, I looked at every last one on my shelf.
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I'm not glossing over anything. Here is what you've stated regarding the "qualifications for an RPG":isiolia wrote:Or you keep glossing over what I've stated, multiple times.Valkyrie-Favor wrote: Tell us exactly what you think and why. No what knows what you're trying to say and we can only discuss your ancillary points because they're the only ones you've made.
The original point, at any rate, was that your qualifications for an RPG are probably too broad.
Can your otogenic, long game, and short game describe the flow of an RPG? Sure.
It also describes Gran Turismo. Or Madden. Depending on how abstract, it could apply to almost anything (I need to collect powerups/extra lives (otogenic) to last through this world (long), so I should avoid getting hit by that Koopa (short)).
Again, the precepts are solid, but basically describe well incorporated progression in most any game that has it. Hey, I just picked up a sniper rifle, and only one clip (scarcity!), there are a number of soldiers (threat!). I can avoid them, or use my limited ammo to take them out. Only, now, there are enemy snipers too. Is that an ammo box over there? Running for it might get me shot.
That's encounter/level design. Ensuring that potential upgrades are useful is also just basic design. Not bad, not irrelevant, just universal.
Either most games then count as strategy/RPGs, or there's something beyond that which really would set those particular genres apart.
That's why I say the quest/dialogue/exploration/etc structure is a lot more what makes an RPG.
So, you reject my definition of the JRPG because other games, which you don't consider JRPGs, also have elements included in my definition. Nothing wrong with that. "Good RPG design" is a subset of "good game design" so no surprise the first precept could come in handy for creation tension in other genres.your qualifications for a great JRPG aren't bad, but could probably be applied to pretty much any game type with growth and combat.
but it'd be how the game creates context for it that'd determine whether it'd even be a JRPG in the first place (something I wouldn't necessarily put SRPGs or ARPGs under).
despite it not having particularly deep combat or progression may be an indication that, for many, that's not the entirety of what makes a JRPG good.
RPG in general is an extremely broad term, and past threads have gone on and on about what should or should not be counted as what.
Regardless, JRPG as a category is the counterpart to WRPG, and the typically described difference between the two is in character and/or narrative customization, though many would also look at aesthetics I suppose.
To me, RPGs (particularly) tend to be hybrid games by nature. The combat/conflict mechanics on their own don't define the genre per se. What makes them an RPG versus simply a strategy game, a tennis game, a third person shooter, or whatever, is the larger game structure.
that's enjoying the typical framework that'd make it a JRPG, particularly with regard to character and narrative.
both games hold true to the conceits of their respective subgenres.
the combat mechanics are secondary in the overall experience that most RPGs provide, and Chrono Trigger isn't an exception.
RPG is a broad genre. Personally, I would limit the term to games that actually incorporate role-playing
[stylistic differences] are highly typical of a JRPG, as opposed to a different flavor of RPG
there's a structure to a game that makes it an RPG as opposed to something else. Exploration, quests, talking to NPCs, and so on. The systems you mention from FFVIII, all on their own, don't constitute an RPG.
The decisions, quests, all that in Fallout 3 are what make it an RPG
I don't think either [the existing mechanics] are what define the games/genres
They are hardly universal, though. Ridge Racer threatens the player with rival cars, but you're never running out of gas. Echochrome lacks threat, scarcity-threat, and tension completely. My three-layer structure isn't universal either - Echochrome simply presents the player with one puzzle after another until each has been solved. There's no hint of a long game in Ridge Racer.
But maybe I really have missed the point. Maybe I've missed "something beyond that which really would set those particular genres apart." If so, I don't get it and it'll have to be explained to me.
I'm asking not what doesn't set CRPGs apart, but what does. Try using specific examples, and a lot of them, to come up with an idea.
Next you say JRPGs are defined by their structure, as I just pointed out. But the things that I pointed out are the wrong things. Combat mechanics are also the wrong things - and I agree. The short game can be anything.
Instead, the JRPG's structure is defined by...decisions, explorations, quests, talking to NPCs, and so on. Yggdra Union doesn't have quests and explorations, but other types of games do. And wasn't my definition wrong for that very reason?
No. Our concept of the type "CRPG" comes from many elements and their relationships to each other. There is more to my theory than the three layers - it's the relationship between the short, long, and ontogenic games that sets it apart.
I've actually never played a Gran Turismo game, but if you say it fits my description I've no problem with calling it a "racing CRPG."
Again, categorizing games is pretty stupid by itself. I'm insistent about it only because my theory is relevant to JRPG criticism, I can hardly call myself an expert if I don't know what a JRPG is.
