I think its time for us to discuss what a JRPG is an what makes it work as a game. This Probably should have been the first post on this page, but better late than never. A JRPG is essentially a game of chess but your “pieces” return to their original positions after each turn and they have attack and Defense stats to determine who will hit and be hit the hardest.
This definition comes from my own personal experience. But I think that it’s important to elaborate further because although other genres like fighting games and sports are easily distinguishable from each other, JRPG shares the realm with its Cousin, the RPG.
Okay, these are alot of letters. start breaking down some of these terms. JRPG stands for Japanese Role Playing game. Now the announcement of the region is important here. This style of game traditionally has turn based battles, multiple characters you can play as, usually called “party members” and a battle system that teleports you to a field or area where you fight the enemies.
That is not an iron clad definition, but its a start. In conjunction with all of that, a JRPG must have stats and numbers that have a direct impact on game play. A quick example would be if you equipped a sword that does 100 damage and hit an enemy with 85 defense, so you see that you hit for 15 damage. things are usually much more complicated than that but it helps paint the picture.
Another important factor, at least for me is the presence of anime style art and character models. I love anime so it definitely helps me get excited about a game when I see anime style.
The RPG is actually the original genre here. It simply means Role Playing Game. It comes to the video game world from the attempt of Video Game developers to recreate the experience of table top role playing games like dungeons and dragons. These games had things like hit points (HP) to tell you how much damage your character could withstand and fighting monsters in dungeons which obviously carried over to their computer game counter parts. Along those lines you could say that the JRPG is the Japanese interpretation of those orginal Computer Role playing Games like Wizadry and Ultima.
One of the Key things that RPGs and JRPGs have in common is the progression of a character through the Leveling System. Gaining a level is one of the best feelings I had When I played games as a kid. Through battling monsters and completing quests you would get experience points and when you accumulated enough points, a level would be gained. This increases your stats and can even unlock new abilities. There is usually a sound or song that plays to celebrate the occasion that helps make it feel exciting.
Now That we have gotten the definition and distinction out of the way, lets talk about what i feel is the most important part of JRPGs, that battle mechanics. The story is improtant and so is the music and the art. All these things combine to make a wonderful experience. But as much as i love to read fantasy novels and listen to great music, the point of playing a game is to interact with it. if that interaction is not done right or is a frustrating experience, then it can completely render a game unplayable. My goal here is to identify the two main types of battle mechanics that can popularly be found in a JRPG and try to explain why they are so crucial to the experience.
Turn Based
Like I said earlier, JRPGs are like games of chess, you take turns. This turn based battle system is a staple of the Genre and you can really understand it by looking at the early final fantasy games.
The final Fantasy series is a very popular JRpg Franchise but it was not the first RPG or even JRPG for that matter. But im going to talk about it here because its the easiest one to explain and probably the one you will bring up when someone asks you what is a JRPG and how they work.
The Final fantasy games would later improve turn based combat by allowing to see the turn order. Now You knew who was going to attack next in your party and which enemy would attack next. This added a huge amount of Depth to the battles. now you could pick an choose your actions in a way that would leave the enemies helpless and leaving you with out any damage. It doesnt always go that way but it gives you something exciting to strive for in each enemy encounter.
Variants
There are some notable Variants to the turn based system that can give you more control over the outcome of the battle, instead of just delegating comannds and waiting for them to play out. This Control Is sometimes reffered to as player agency. While you definitely will have more control over the battle and you may have to manage so many things that it may feel as though the action is just constantly going, this is still turn based combat.
Active Time Battle System
Some examples of this are the Active Time Battle system (ATB) Developed by Hiroyuki Ito for use in Final Fantasy IV. In this System the your characters and the enemies all have a charge or “Wait” meter. how fast these meters charge are determined by a bunch of different factors but in the end they will determine the turn order of battle. This is exciting because everyone is constantly attacking and defending through the course of the encounter. it also means that now instead of normal chess where you can take your time and plan your moves, it almost becomes speed chess in which you have a fixed amount of time to make your moves except you cant really lose by time. if you do nothing however, your characters will probably get beaten into the ground by the constantly attacking enemies.
Timed Hits
Some JRPGs let you press a button at a specific point in your characters animation to deal double damage. On its own it may seem like just a nifty little add on to turn based combat. But when your down to your last health potion and your healer is out of MP(Mana/Magic points), trying to time your hit perfectly to possibly finish a boss and win the battle is an intense feeling. Its definitely a cause for celebration when you succeed. The best example of this is in Super Mario RPG for the SNES. all the timed mechanics in that game made the battles seem more like mini games than like actual fights. The Final Fantasy game that i always think about when of this system is Final Fantasy VIII. The Main Characters physical attacks can be timed to do extra damage and a cool extra animation. all of this serves to keep you engaged with the battle. Since Battles are usually the only real barrier to progressing in a JRPG its important that they are fun and interesting so the experience is rewarding.
Action
There are JRPGS where you control the character directly like an action game. This may seem like it breaks all the rules of jrpgs but they are still abiding by certain rules. The damage is still determined by your characters stats and a host of other Random occurrences are governed by all the stats as well. What Usually Signifies these action games as JRPGs is that you will be taken to a seperate field fight the enemies. A good example of that is what happens in the “Tales” series of games. You can control your characters as you run around the screen and pull off devastating combos. Also the Tales series utalizes on screen enemies instead of random battles . This gives the Player more agency over their characters leveling and their progression through the game. Random battles will suddenly send you into battle while walking through a dungeon or some other dangerous area. But with the on screen enemies model, you can see the monsters on screen and if you bump into them or if the catch you, then you will see a battle screen and be sent to fight. Turn based Jrpgs can still have onscreen enemies but i feel as though with action rpgs, on screen enemies are kind of an expected feature. Also while I certainly still enjoy games new and old that have random battles, I personally love games with on screen enemies because it takes some of the anxiety and frustration out of leveling and exploring.
The Neirest Island
Some games like Nier Automata Straddle this line between Jrpg and Action rpg. In Neir You dont travel to a seperate battle screen to fight enemies but instead you fight them right there on the screen with no real interutpion. I See Neir as a JRPG because of the other elements inolved, like an elabortate menu system and an understanding of game mechanics that is necessary to progess. you have to be more than good at action games to be proficent at Nier Automata. I think thats where the real distinction rests. If you can just pick up and play the game with no prior knowldge of Jrpgs or Jrpg sytems then its probably not a Jrpg. Also the anime style characters make it feel right at home in the JRPG Genre. Anime has a certain feel to it after you have watched a lot of it and I get that feeling during some parts of Neir.
Close But Not Quite
Lastly, there are games that are not JRPGS or RPGs at all but use a ton of RPG mechanics. these are simply action games with rpg mechanics. At some point people realized that rpgs are the best genre and started to use all of our gameplay mechanics. Im just joking, kind of. but I do want to talk about these kinds of games and their realation JRPG players in the future. For example Im Playing Spider-Man Miles Morales In between Jrpgs right now. In This Game im gaining levels and using skill trees but at the end of the day my progression is almost entirely linked to my ability to dodge and attack. I love the game, but its not an RPG.
I dont think its necessary to have an iron clad definition of what is and isnt a Jrpg but I hope that after this post. you can kind of understand my reasoning when it comes to the games that I play and also the games I choose to talk about on this blog. I just think its a fun conversation to have. I really love numbers so I spend a lot of time in the genre of RPGs because they numerically just keep calling my name. I love fantasy stories as well so I am drawn to the Expansive worlds and lore of these games also. I dont really think about what mold they fit into before I buy them, I’m just happy they were made.