Cenequus said:
Now what makes of it an jRPG: well for one to a certain degree the linearity but not by itself it's a linearity that includes side quest(not sure if I explained myself properly).
Second the characters,while for one they aren't 13 yr old kids(I'm sure there are jrpg with adults somewhere) with few exceptions(Jacob and Miranda only come to mind now)the rest are pretty much jRPG clichès. A good example is the behavior a Jacob and Tali vs their respective fathers. But overall any can fit some jRPG archetype and those that know them better could actually make examples for each,this includes Liara,Tali,Thane,Legion,Garrus,Jack with personalities I probably wouldn't dislike that much if I didn't had "normal" personalities(Jacob,Miranda as i said) to compare them.
Now nothnig wrong in the end and I can say I finally liked a jRPG but I made one fatal error that made me reflect more on this subject and open to disscusion...I visited the bioware forum for ME. My mind exploded not at the amount of fanfic that can rival any anime,manga or japanese game but the actual war btwn fanbois of this char vs another. And I mean hundred of thousand of posts with threads having thousand of pages about how much they loved Liara or Tali.
OK, first off, "JRPG" isn't synonymous with "linearity." Your experience with JRPGs must solely be FF10 and 13, and NOTHING in between or before. 12 was probably one of the most sidequest-heavy RPGs I've ever played, and 7-9 all had their fair share of stuff to do that diverged from the set path. All games have a set story, and ask you to traverse that story at a set pace. Not only is no one genre that can be used to define the term "Linear", but your typical JRPG is probably one of the worst, since most versions of the subgenre are typically packed with sidequests.
Now, since I haven't played the game, I don't know the personalities of the characters therein, so I can't take the time I'd like to piece apart your argument. However, aside from age, which is an all-too important factor in JRPGs, most cliched characters in video games are universal, and by that I mean they extend even beyond video games into other forms of media. The Silent Protagonist, the Asshole with a Heart of Gold, Father/Family/Societal Issues, I could go on. The main difference is how these cliches are utilized, and to their fault, some JRPGs have used them in ways so as to pollute the mass opinion of JRPGs (The Emo Protagonist, for one).
Now, since I mentioned age being an important factor in JRPGs, let me continue with that. If you watch the Extra Credits episode Myth of the Gun you'll see that Japan and the US have very different ideals, specific to this episode in regarding to how the gun is treated. It actually doesn't end there. Japan is very focused on adolescence, on the "Springtime of Youth" as they call it. To them, your teenage years are your most epic, the time where everything amazing in your life is supposed to happen. I suppose we here in America have a very similar idea of that, but in Japan it's just turned up to 11. It's been a running joke for a long time now that if a Japanese kid hasn't saved the world by age 12, he's just not trying hard enough. Again, this is because, for whatever reason, Japan views a person's youth as their prime years, as the time when anything can happen, and everything should. It's why so many anime and video games that pour out of Japan focus on High School or Adolescence, or feature characters all in their Teen years. Meanwhile, in America, you see the complete opposite going on. Heroes aren't in their adolescence, but rather in their mid-20's to early-40's. (Typically Militarized) People who have seen the world, know it for the filthy land that it is, and in some cases have given up all hope, but are called upon in a time of need to save the world.
That's another stark contrast between U.S. and Japan. In several U.S. games, negativity reigns supreme. The mission is always one where we might not come back alive, the world is a wasteland, filled with filth that must be cleaned. In most Japanese games, the world is a paradise, marred by impurities that try to corrupt it. Sure, it's in Japanese media more than any other that I've seen Humanity referred to as a parasite, whose sole existence brings nothing but pain and destruction. But those same shows/games will try to push Humanity's drive to survive, their unending desire to progress and improve, and how, even if they can't better themselves, they'll still cling to "hope" and use it as a weapon to defeat the enemy. I could go on, but this is a long enough rant, and if I go further I'd probably simply begin to poke further holes in my logic for people to steamroll through.
The last thing I need to say is that ALL GAMES have fanbases, and there are SEVERAL that have fans so devoted that they will write their own fanfiction and bicker about elements within the game, both gameplay and story. A game like this, which has multiple characters, many with romantic options for the protagonist, and (to my knowledge) has NO imposed Canon to guide the discussion, simply compounds the problem a thousandfold. Keep in mind, also, that Bioware is currently the only non-Japanese game developer actually creating games that have multiple romantic options, and Bioware is well-noted as a developer that excels at story-telling, so it makes sense a lot of people get drawn into the world and want to feel like they're a part of it, either by shipping Shepard and "insert-other-character-here" as an OTP, or by creating their own fanfiction, or just by bickering about the games in some way. It's proof that Bioware is at least doing something right if so many people enjoy their games so much. But it's hardly proof that they created a JRPG, since, for probably the hundredth time in this thread,
they are not a Japanese developer and (to my knowledge) only claimed to use Japanese GAMES as inspiration, NOT Japanese culture.