The JRPG and You

The following editorial was originally posted on QJ.net on the 29th of Decmember of 2011 and can be viewed here. The beginning was an original opening I was toying with and eventually cut due to it's overwritten nature, I've left it in because this is a blog and I needed something to entice a reader into possibly reading more...other than just the READ MORE button. In the article, I draw a comparison between the stories, histories and the genre of gaming, that are Western Shooters and Japanese Role Playing Games. Each a reflection on the cultural history on each country (American and Japan, respectively) and also a form of genre which has grown stale and how other countries/genre's have rectified it so.

It was written some time after I'd spent some time playing the 2009 game, Demon's Souls. The game was incredibly difficult and got me thinking about one of my least favourite genre's: JRPG's. Whilst I grew up playing Pokémon and one of my favourite games from a few years ago was The World Ends with You, I had felt that people had looked down on those who had not been playing Final Fantasy every year of their life, should not be playing JRPG's and considering I am quite time constrained, the whole genre kind of fell by the wayside in my catalogue of games. Like it's more social cousin, the MMORPG,  the time heavy and plot driven ideology, which JRPG's push often give off an air of the Greek epic such as those by Homer or the unconquerable Ulysses by Joyce. However, my adolescent experience, playing games such as Final Fantasy X, had left me cold and grinded down to a point where I'd never really want to play the games again. But Demon's Souls was a JRPG...why did I feel different playing this.


Let's explore shall we...