Is Mass Effect an jRPG?

[NotYetForsaken]

I haven't seen anyone with ridiculous hairstyle in mass effect(except the aliens) and there were no teenage girls to be found so no, its no a JRPG.

Miranda's little sister is still teenage if I remember. She's approaching legal (womanhood when in the convo) when you save her.

 

[Cenequus]

Your argument is based entirely around the fact that two of the characters have a family member involved in their personal loyalty mission. Or that SOME of the other crew members have detailed pasts and problems. Big whoop. That doesn't make it a jrpg. That just means that the characters have depth.

It's not made in japan. The main character is not an angst filled teen with ridiculous hair. It isn't particularly linear. It is not limited in side quests. There are a ton of side missions. (Loyalty missions count as side missions too, ya know.)

Your argument is severely flawed.

It was just an easy example because of the similarity,same goes for Liara,Garrus,Thane,Jack etc. As for side quest(sure it's pretty awesome to find distress calls but usually they last 5 minutes).As for loyalty missions I already said they ARE the meat of side quests but they are pretty much integrated into the main quest. Don't get fooled by the argument I really liked the game(finished it back to back twice for what it matters)was just noting similarities that maybe go beyond the genre or my point define a genre. It's not a jRPG because it wasn't made in Japan.

Your accusation is broad and firmly clumps a genre of games together as one to exemplify a misguided view.

On the flip side, with Japan's culture saturation it's nearly impossible to avoid either Japanese influence or Japan being influenced itself. So traces of it are just in most people's psyche and that's what gets the comparison marked off to.

I'm the first to wear the pink western RPG supremacy over jRPGs but not in this case. There was no accusation or atleast not in my intent. Was just pointing some similarities and how people built cults around those. Thing is it's not your usual Baldur's gate nerds that do it which would have been normal...not exactly but sort off. But "normal people". To make another example(Poor Tali) the biggest Tali fanclub is called "Team Tali",nothing strange even for me at first look,just that it bears the same image/style and t-shirts with Edward Cullen in Team Twilight. Call me strange but those are the people that like angsty teenagers in films/music/games.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's not from Japan. Ergo, it cannot be a jrpg.

/close thread

 

[Not-here-anymore]

There really needs to be more of a distinction between stats-customisation games and role-playing games.

This seems to be the main difference between JRPG's and WRPG's. J's tend more towards stats meddling and different character builds, W's more towards choice in how things are done (like ME2). I'll stress now that the above is very much a generalisation, I'm aware that some games do both, and some games do the opposite of what I indicated. Please don't bombard me with examples of how I'm wrong.

 

[scorptatious]

I'm pretty sure Mass Effect wasn't made in Japan, so it can't be a JRPG.

Second the characters,while for one they aren't 13 yr old kids(I'm sure there are jrpg with adults somewhere)

Final Fantasy VII's main cast consists of almost entirely adults. (With the exception of Yuffie and Red XIII, who by his race's standards is considered a teenager at his age.)

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Nothing wrong in having problems and as I said the difference btwn an jrpg character and an western rpg char is how they deal with them. Not gonna argue about chars beeing useless or not even if I always used Miranda because or her sqaud bonus hp and dmg but as I said there's a huge difference btwn how Jacob deals with what his father did and how Tali deals with hers.

Those are two very different situations, given to two characters who aren't even of the same species and culture. I'm a ME2 lore-hound and I could write a huge paragraph about the differences like I was going to do, but no one wants to read that and it will take too much time to type out.

You are trying to base your whole arguement on the fact that the characters have different personalities and handle things differently. Those are the RPG elements. Almost 'all' games have those. So, yes, ME2 may share RPG elements with other games, but that doesn't strictly make it an JRPG. You are also trying to avoid looking at art style,game-style, and in-game combat systems and say they should have nothing to do with the argument, but those things actually make up a huge part of certain game genres, like JRPGS.

-Also, people do become obsessed with things. Make fan-clubs, t-shirts, and goodness knows what else. Harry Potter, Twilight, video games. That's not just JRPG fan-base behavior, that's just people being..weird...lol-

 

[ACman]

It's not from Japan. Ergo, it cannot be a jrpg.

/close thread

I dunno I'd definately lump Anachronox in with JRPGs and it's western apart from its gameplay mechanic.

If the japanese made a western style rpg I'd call it an RPG. If anybody made something appoximating FF or Chronotrigger or whatever I'd call it a jrpg. I thing jrpg as a descriptor has transcended being linked to country of origin.

Otherwise I agree with everybody else. It's a talky shooter where you can't aim for crap for a while.

 

[kasperbbs]

I haven't seen anyone with ridiculous hairstyle in mass effect(except the aliens) and there were no teenage girls to be found so no, its no a JRPG.

Miranda's little sister is still teenage if I remember. She's approaching legal (womanhood when in the convo) when you save her.

So i guess it really is a JRPG. I dont recall if Miranda's sister was wearing a very short dress and did she have ridiculously huge boobs?

 

[Cenequus]

Nothing wrong in having problems and as I said the difference btwn an jrpg character and an western rpg char is how they deal with them. Not gonna argue about chars beeing useless or not even if I always used Miranda because or her sqaud bonus hp and dmg but as I said there's a huge difference btwn how Jacob deals with what his father did and how Tali deals with hers.

Those are two very different situations, given to two characters who aren't even of the same species and culture. I'm a ME2 lore-hound and I could write a huge paragraph about the differences like I was going to do, but no one wants to read that and it will take too much time to type out.

You are trying to base your whole arguement on the fact that the characters have different personalities and handle things differently. Those are the RPG elements. Almost 'all' games have those. So, yes, ME2 may share RPG elements with other games, but that doesn't strictly make it an JRPG. You are also trying to avoid looking at art style,game-style, and in-game combat systems and say they should have nothing to do with the argument, but those things actually make up a huge part of certain game genres, like JRPGS.

Totally agree with you the main reason I can't stand jRPGs are the art style and obsolete combat system. But everybody and his mother always told me to try and look beyond that because of great story or whatever. That's why in my example I let those pass and focus on that. Also consider me superficial and insensible(I'm a guy after all)but they don't act like adults in those situations,forget Tali but look at Thane,Liara,Jack.

 

[kickyourass]

It's not a JRPG because it's not made in Japan. QED.

Thank you sir, you took the word right out of my mouth.

 

[NotYetForsaken]

Your accusation is broad and firmly clumps a genre of games together as one to exemplify a misguided view.

On the flip side, with Japan's culture saturation it's nearly impossible to avoid either Japanese influence or Japan being influenced itself. So traces of it are just in most people's psyche and that's what gets the comparison marked off to.

I'm the first to wear the pink western RPG supremacy over jRPGs but not in this case. There was no accusation or atleast not in my intent. Was just pointing some similarities and how people built cults around those. Thing is it's not your usual Baldur's gate nerds that do it which would have been normal...not exactly but sort off. But "normal people". To make another example(Poor Tali) the biggest Tali fanclub is called "Team Tali",nothing strange even for me at first look,just that it bears the same image/style and t-shirts with Edward Cullen in Team Twilight. Call me strange but those are the people that like angsty teenagers in films/music/games.

Were you not stating that Mass effect 2 is a JRPG-esque game? That sounds like an accusation to me. The word doesn't always carry a negative denotation.

Now I want you to know something. Team Tali is made up of the same people who formed the Imoen/Minsc fanclub for Baldur's Gate. Tali is an exported character, from your own fucking counter argument.

The last statement made me chuckle a bit, that is such a massive generalization of Fan Clubs that its comparable to generalizing the Universe as "big." Every single fan club, whether it be for Hoshi no Kaabi (a children aimed Anime no less) to Twilight (angst-based sex fantasy) to Musical Groups (Mindless Groupies). Every fan club follows the same organization and display pattern, the only difference being how obnoxious they are (see MLP:FiM.)

Your points are all to general in the sea of entertainment. I want to say it's akin to pointing at a block of irridium and calling it a diamond because both are hard.

 

[NotYetForsaken]

I haven't seen anyone with ridiculous hairstyle in mass effect(except the aliens) and there were no teenage girls to be found so no, its no a JRPG.

Miranda's little sister is still teenage if I remember. She's approaching legal (womanhood when in the convo) when you save her.

So i guess it really is a JRPG. I dont recall if Miranda's sister was wearing a very short dress and did she have ridiculously huge boobs?

Cute, Miranda's sister was wearing a blue Illium designed full length dress with a breast window. She also uses the default female character model used by everyone but Miranda and Kelly/Tali.

 

[PastaGabe]

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe the only reference to Bioware being inspired by Final Fantasy was the helmet-goggle mask that the Blue Suns mercenaries used as well as some aesthetics but that wasn't from any of the games, it was from the cgi movie. I just wanted to check on that, I couldn't care less for the rest of the argument.

 

[CleverCover]

I don't think it's an JRPG.
A JRPG is an RPG made in Japan.

And really, characteristics of characters aren't only allowed to be in certain stories. Every game has the, my family was killed by evil dude and now I'm seeking revenge or something. That cliche isn't something only WRPG's have.

So no.

 

[FinalHeart95]

No, because it's not Japanese. What you described tends to be tropes used in japanese development of RPGs, but not necessary to be a JRPG.

Also, see the second half of Final Fantasy VI and call that linear.

 

[Eduku]

Does it really have to be made in Japan (according to so many comments here) to really be a JRPG? People call Demon's Souls a WRPG even though it's made in Japan. Inversely, Anachronox is called a JRPG even though it was made in the US.

Also, the use of JRPG stereotypes is astounding.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I thing jrpg as a descriptor has transcended being linked to country of origin.

The reason I didn't even bother describing anything in distinction there is because for decades now, the term "RPG" (beyond the very-direct "Rocket-Propelled-Grenade") lacks a clear, concise definition apart from (arguably) "it has stats".

You could ask 1000 different gamers what an "RPG" is, and they wouldn't be able to give you a clear response without directly referencing another RPG. "X is defined as being like Y".
Without those frames of reference (which ISN'T what a definition is; a definition is the specific meaning of something; not the "vague, sort-of-like-that" meaning of something) I bet you would get hundreds of different responses at least. Similar, but not the same by any means.

Fewer gaming terms are so ambigous and "fuzzy" in their nature.

The only parts of jrpgs that fall into some sort of consistency (and I say take this with a mountain of salt), are the tropes that are popular in Japanese culture. Children, magic, school stress, cutesy-ness, epic karate/sword battle duels, etc.

Mass Effect doesn't follow any of those tropes directly. Maybe a few jrpg tropes, but the game is decidedly NOT culturally Japanese. At all.

ASIDE: Re-Captcha had a phrase that was COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN.
This shit is just getting ridiculous now.

 

[Cenequus]

Your accusation is broad and firmly clumps a genre of games together as one to exemplify a misguided view.

On the flip side, with Japan's culture saturation it's nearly impossible to avoid either Japanese influence or Japan being influenced itself. So traces of it are just in most people's psyche and that's what gets the comparison marked off to.

I'm the first to wear the pink western RPG supremacy over jRPGs but not in this case. There was no accusation or atleast not in my intent. Was just pointing some similarities and how people built cults around those. Thing is it's not your usual Baldur's gate nerds that do it which would have been normal...not exactly but sort off. But "normal people". To make another example(Poor Tali) the biggest Tali fanclub is called "Team Tali",nothing strange even for me at first look,just that it bears the same image/style and t-shirts with Edward Cullen in Team Twilight. Call me strange but those are the people that like angsty teenagers in films/music/games.

Were you not stating that Mass effect 2 is a JRPG-esque game? That sounds like an accusation to me. The word doesn't always carry a negative denotation.

Now I want you to know something. Team Tali is made up of the same people who formed the Imoen/Minsc fanclub for Baldur's Gate. Tali is an exported character, from your own fucking counter argument.

The last statement made me chuckle a bit, that is such a massive generalization of Fan Clubs that its comparable to generalizing the Universe as "big." Every single fan club, whether it be for Hoshi no Kaabi (a children aimed Anime no less) to Twilight (angst-based sex fantasy) to Musical Groups (Mindless Groupies). Every fan club follows the same organization and display pattern, the only difference being how obnoxious they are (see MLP:FiM.)

Your points are all to general in the sea of entertainment. I want to say it's akin to pointing at a block of irridium and calling it a diamond because both are hard.

Not such a big generalizion if you google search Mass Effect team tali without safe search. But hey generalizing is always wrong,the fact it's a copycat of the team twilight made me say that,and I'm one pretty neutral on subject(better read something stupid rather than not read anything at all).

Not trying to prove anything actually but at this point anything is ok since most posts are "it's not jRPG because it's not made in japan".